WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 You know, when you think about an organized highly 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:05.879 motivated group of people coming together on 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:09.140 the internet, you usually picture a fandom. Right, 00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:11.640 yeah, like people who just absolutely love a 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:15.160 band or a sports team or a massive movie franchise. 00:00:15.380 --> 00:00:18.000 Exactly, it's an ecosystem built entirely on 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.019 adoration. You buy the merchandise, you paint 00:00:20.019 --> 00:00:23.839 your face, you memorize all the obscure trivia. 00:00:23.859 --> 00:00:25.839 You want the thing you're focusing on to succeed. 00:00:25.940 --> 00:00:28.679 It's a community bound together by, well, by 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:30.379 shared enthusiasts. All right, the collective 00:00:30.379 --> 00:00:32.340 energy is positive, even if it gets a little 00:00:32.340 --> 00:00:35.859 obsessive. But what if we invert that entirely? 00:00:35.899 --> 00:00:38.299 Oh, man. What if you take all that obsessive 00:00:38.299 --> 00:00:40.420 late night energy, all the sprawling message 00:00:40.420 --> 00:00:43.380 boards, the highly coordinated digital campaigns, 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:46.100 and you aim all of it at the total destruction 00:00:46.100 --> 00:00:48.560 of a single company? Yeah. That is a completely 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:51.939 different vibe. It really is. Welcome to today's 00:00:51.939 --> 00:00:54.399 Deep Dive. We are looking at a stack of sources 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:57.659 today, centering on a fascinating Wikipedia article 00:00:57.659 --> 00:01:00.740 detailing an online collective known as TSLAQ. 00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:02.960 It's quite a story. The mission for today's deep 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:05.180 dive is to explore what happens when you build 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:08.579 the ultimate corporate anti -fandom. We're unpacking 00:01:08.579 --> 00:01:11.260 how an anonymous international group of internet 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:14.620 sleuths, skeptics, and short sellers organized 00:01:14.620 --> 00:01:17.700 to wage a massive information war against Tesla 00:01:17.700 --> 00:01:21.250 and its CEO. Elon Musk. Both digitally and physically, 00:01:21.390 --> 00:01:24.030 which is wild. Yeah. OK, let's unpack this. This 00:01:24.030 --> 00:01:26.170 is such a critical topic for you to understand, 00:01:26.170 --> 00:01:28.730 because while this isn't just a story about internet 00:01:28.730 --> 00:01:31.329 trolls exchanging memes on a message board, we 00:01:31.329 --> 00:01:33.829 are talking about billions of dollars on the 00:01:33.829 --> 00:01:36.870 line. It's a story about the raw power of networked 00:01:36.870 --> 00:01:41.109 advocacy and the extreme lengths people go to 00:01:41.109 --> 00:01:43.390 just to prove a dominant corporate narrative 00:01:43.390 --> 00:01:45.689 wrong. And before we get into what this group 00:01:45.689 --> 00:01:47.530 actually does out there in the real world, we 00:01:47.530 --> 00:01:49.140 really need to understand exactly who they are, 00:01:49.260 --> 00:01:51.239 and, you know, the specific start that forced 00:01:51.239 --> 00:01:53.019 them to organize in the first place. Yeah, let's 00:01:53.019 --> 00:01:55.920 start with the name. So TSLAQ. It's pronounced 00:01:55.920 --> 00:01:59.680 Tesla Q. It's basically a mashup. You take Tesla's 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:02.620 stock ticker symbol, which is TSLA, and you add 00:02:02.620 --> 00:02:04.760 the letter Q to the end of it. And why the Q? 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:08.240 Well, because on the NASDAQ exchange, adding 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:11.319 a Q to a ticker symbol specifically indicates 00:02:11.319 --> 00:02:13.759 that a company has filed for bankruptcy. Which 00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:16.479 is just, I mean, it... perfectly encapsulates 00:02:16.479 --> 00:02:19.800 their entire thesis in a single keystroke. It 00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:22.460 really does. They are this loose international 00:02:22.460 --> 00:02:24.840 collective operating primarily on social media. 00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:28.360 They use the cash tag TSLAQ on platforms like 00:02:28.360 --> 00:02:31.520 Twitter, now known as X, and they coordinate 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:33.759 really heavily on Reddit. Right. They use those 00:02:33.759 --> 00:02:36.439 platforms to share news, post their own independent 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:38.819 analysis, and just actively try to tear down 00:02:38.819 --> 00:02:40.580 the company's PR narratives. But they weren't 00:02:40.580 --> 00:02:42.560 always a formalized swarm, right? Like for a 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:44.340 long time, they were just scattered individuals. 00:02:44.270 --> 00:02:46.509 screaming into the void of the internet. Exactly. 00:02:46.750 --> 00:02:50.469 Until July of 2018. The sources point to a specific 00:02:50.469 --> 00:02:53.210 catalyst for the birth of TSLAQ as a unified 00:02:53.210 --> 00:02:56.270 group and revolves around a guy using the pseudonym 00:02:56.270 --> 00:02:58.949 Montana Skeptic. Right. So Montana Skeptic was 00:02:58.949 --> 00:03:01.030 the pen name of a man named Lawrence Fossey. 00:03:01.110 --> 00:03:03.610 He was a highly visible writer for the financial 00:03:03.610 --> 00:03:06.689 website Seeking Alpha and a really vocal short 00:03:06.689 --> 00:03:09.189 seller of Tesla. Now, pseudonymous writing is 00:03:09.189 --> 00:03:11.310 a huge part of the financial commentary world. 00:03:11.569 --> 00:03:13.590 Yeah, because if you're publicly betting against 00:03:13.590 --> 00:03:16.229 a massive corporation, you want to protect yourself, 00:03:16.590 --> 00:03:19.250 you know, from corporate retaliation or harassment. 00:03:19.569 --> 00:03:22.930 Exactly. Your anonymity is your shield. But in 00:03:22.930 --> 00:03:26.150 July 2018, that shield was completely shattered. 00:03:26.289 --> 00:03:29.710 Because Lawrence Fossey was doxxed. Yes. His 00:03:29.710 --> 00:03:32.770 real identity was exposed to the public. And 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:33.990 you would think that would be the end of it. 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:37.159 Right? I mean, the nuclear threat of doxing is 00:03:37.159 --> 00:03:38.699 supposed to scatter the critics. It's supposed 00:03:38.699 --> 00:03:41.159 to make everyone else terrified to speak up. 00:03:41.379 --> 00:03:44.219 But the exact opposite happened. Right. The exposure 00:03:44.219 --> 00:03:47.259 of Montana skeptic acted as a massive rallying 00:03:47.259 --> 00:03:49.780 cry. It was the spark that ignited the powder 00:03:49.780 --> 00:03:52.039 keg. Instead of running away, these scattered 00:03:52.039 --> 00:03:54.479 skeptics circled the wagons and formally became 00:03:54.479 --> 00:03:58.159 TSLAQ. And we really cannot overstate the financial 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:01.080 stakes involved in this ecosystem. Like, by December 00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:03.860 of 2020, Tesla wasn't just another stock with 00:04:03.860 --> 00:04:06.379 some vocal skeptics. No, it was the most shorted 00:04:06.379 --> 00:04:09.259 stock in the entire United States. Yeah. At its 00:04:09.259 --> 00:04:13.199 peak, there was over $34 .5 billion in shorted 00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:15.099 share value betting against the company. That 00:04:15.099 --> 00:04:17.819 is just an astronomical amount of money. Right. 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:20.980 When you have $34 .5 billion betting against 00:04:20.980 --> 00:04:23.680 you, that's not just market speculation anymore. 00:04:23.779 --> 00:04:26.139 That is literally the GDP of a small country, 00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:28.720 financially incentivized to find a crack in your 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:31.379 armor. It's staggering. I mean, I like to think 00:04:31.379 --> 00:04:33.680 of TSLAQ as a neighborhood watch group for the 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:36.889 stock market, but... armed with telephoto lenses 00:04:36.889 --> 00:04:38.850 and spreadsheets. That's a great analogy. But 00:04:38.850 --> 00:04:40.810 I really have to push back on their core motivations 00:04:40.810 --> 00:04:44.089 here. Like, are these people genuinely concerned 00:04:44.089 --> 00:04:47.189 about corporate fraud and protecting the everyday 00:04:47.189 --> 00:04:49.790 retail investor? Or are they just highly motivated 00:04:49.790 --> 00:04:52.930 gamblers trying to protect their $34 .5 billion 00:04:52.930 --> 00:04:55.490 bet? Exactly. Because if I have billions riding 00:04:55.490 --> 00:04:57.649 on a company failing, I'm going to do everything 00:04:57.649 --> 00:04:59.629 in my power to make sure they fail. Well, what's 00:04:59.629 --> 00:05:01.389 fascinating here is that according to their own 00:05:01.389 --> 00:05:03.850 self -reported goals, this was noted in a 2019 00:05:03.850 --> 00:05:06.889 LA Times piece. Their main objective was to, 00:05:07.029 --> 00:05:09.990 quote, change the mind of Tesla stock bulls and 00:05:09.990 --> 00:05:12.250 the media. So they wanted to completely shift 00:05:12.250 --> 00:05:15.410 the narrative. Right. They fundamentally believed 00:05:15.410 --> 00:05:17.730 Tesla was a fraudulent company heading for a 00:05:17.730 --> 00:05:20.600 crash. And they turn their financial speculation 00:05:20.600 --> 00:05:23.680 into an active, crowdsourced information campaign. 00:05:24.019 --> 00:05:26.019 They weren't just passively waiting for the stock 00:05:26.019 --> 00:05:28.540 to drop. No, they were actively trying to expose 00:05:28.540 --> 00:05:30.899 the structural cracks they believed were hidden 00:05:30.899 --> 00:05:33.779 behind the corporate PR. So since these skeptics 00:05:33.779 --> 00:05:37.060 have billions of dollars on the line, what exactly 00:05:37.060 --> 00:05:39.540 is their unified theory of attack? Like, what 00:05:39.540 --> 00:05:41.740 are they digging up to try and convince the market 00:05:41.740 --> 00:05:44.939 that this culturally dominant company is destined 00:05:44.939 --> 00:05:47.139 for bankruptcy? Because looking at the sources, 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:49.319 they aren't just throwing darts at a board. No, 00:05:49.399 --> 00:05:52.000 they are relentlessly targeting the gap between 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:54.379 what the company presents to the public and what 00:05:54.379 --> 00:05:57.120 is actually happening behind closed doors. And 00:05:57.120 --> 00:05:59.920 a huge part of that is deep forensic accounting. 00:06:00.279 --> 00:06:03.579 Exactly. At the macro level, TSLAQ members push 00:06:03.579 --> 00:06:06.240 the theory of a demand cliff. OK, what is that? 00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:08.339 This was their claim that the public appetite 00:06:08.339 --> 00:06:11.220 for Tesla's cars was actually dropping off rapidly 00:06:11.220 --> 00:06:13.920 and that the company was systematically distorting 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:16.300 its sales numbers to hide that terrifying reality 00:06:16.300 --> 00:06:19.660 from investors. Wow. But to prove that, they 00:06:19.660 --> 00:06:21.319 really had to get into the weeds of the balance 00:06:21.319 --> 00:06:24.079 sheets. Oh, absolutely. They raised serious, 00:06:24.579 --> 00:06:26.959 highly technical questions about irregularities 00:06:26.959 --> 00:06:30.379 regarding accounts receivables, regulatory credits 00:06:30.379 --> 00:06:33.220 and specifically. Warranty reserves and we should 00:06:33.220 --> 00:06:35.240 actually unpack the mechanics of that because 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:38.339 it is brilliant if you're an investigative skeptic 00:06:38.339 --> 00:06:41.860 go for it So warranty reserves are basically 00:06:41.860 --> 00:06:45.139 the funds a company legally has to set aside 00:06:45.139 --> 00:06:48.740 to fix Future broken products. It's a predicted 00:06:48.740 --> 00:06:51.399 expense right if you as a company artificially 00:06:51.399 --> 00:06:54.120 lower those reserves on paper You know saying 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:56.259 oh our cars won't break as much as we thought 00:06:56.670 --> 00:06:58.790 then that money goes straight back onto the balance 00:06:58.790 --> 00:07:01.050 sheet. And your quarterly profits suddenly look 00:07:01.050 --> 00:07:03.050 a whole lot better in the short term. Exactly. 00:07:03.170 --> 00:07:05.449 Even if you haven't sold a single extra car, 00:07:05.870 --> 00:07:08.529 that is the kind of deep forensic accounting 00:07:08.529 --> 00:07:11.610 TSLAQ was utilizing to argue the company was 00:07:11.610 --> 00:07:13.910 a house of cards. And they applied that exact 00:07:13.910 --> 00:07:16.269 same financial scrutiny to the company's historical 00:07:16.269 --> 00:07:19.029 promises, too. Oh, like what? Well, in 2012, 00:07:19.310 --> 00:07:22.230 Elon Musk publicly claimed that Tesla would never 00:07:22.230 --> 00:07:25.389 need to ever raise another funding round. He 00:07:25.389 --> 00:07:27.300 pitched the idea that the company was going to 00:07:27.300 --> 00:07:30.939 be entirely self -sustaining. And TSLAQ members 00:07:30.939 --> 00:07:33.480 kept the receipts on that. They loudly pointed 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:36.000 out that following that specific statement, Tesla 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.819 actually ran a total negative cash flow of over 00:07:38.819 --> 00:07:42.000 eight. billion dollars. Eight billion. Yeah. 00:07:42.180 --> 00:07:44.680 And they subsequently had to raise over 18 billion 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:47.139 dollars in additional debt and equity, utilizing 00:07:47.139 --> 00:07:49.939 subsidies and other financial levers just to 00:07:49.939 --> 00:07:51.779 stay afloat. So they were tracking the financials, 00:07:51.779 --> 00:07:53.300 but they also went after corporate behavior. 00:07:53.819 --> 00:07:57.079 They heavily highlighted a 2019 ruling by a California 00:07:57.079 --> 00:07:59.819 judge stating that Tesla had violated labor laws. 00:07:59.879 --> 00:08:02.500 Right. By unfairly disciplining employees who 00:08:02.500 --> 00:08:05.300 were engaging in pro -union activity. Yeah. But 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:07.920 the holy grail for TSLEQ, the thing that really 00:08:07.920 --> 00:08:10.899 galvanized them. was the 2016 acquisition of 00:08:10.899 --> 00:08:13.500 SolarCity. That was a huge deal for them. They 00:08:13.500 --> 00:08:16.779 alleged massive fraud and insider dealings surrounding 00:08:16.779 --> 00:08:19.459 that acquisition. Now, we have to be completely 00:08:19.459 --> 00:08:21.120 impartial here and look at the legal outcomes. 00:08:21.980 --> 00:08:25.319 The courts entirely vindicated Tesla on the SolarCity 00:08:25.319 --> 00:08:28.860 front. Tesla explicitly won that fraud case in 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:31.939 2022. The legal system sided with Tesla, yes. 00:08:32.419 --> 00:08:35.279 But within that overarching SolarCity saga, there 00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:38.899 was a specific undeniable victory for TSLAQ. 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:41.679 that proved their presentation versus reality 00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:44.360 thesis. Oh, the fake roof tiles. This is incredible. 00:08:44.399 --> 00:08:47.700 Tell the story. It's wild. So in October 2016, 00:08:47.940 --> 00:08:50.559 Elon Musk stood on stage and revealed a sleek 00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:53.080 new solar roof shingle. It looked amazing. It 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:55.279 was like a perfect product reveal. Right. But 00:08:55.279 --> 00:08:57.879 TSLAQ members, specifically an account named 00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:00.059 at Tesla Charts, started looking really intensely 00:09:00.059 --> 00:09:02.820 at the presentation materials. And they speculated 00:09:02.820 --> 00:09:04.980 that the tiles shown were completely fake. They 00:09:04.980 --> 00:09:07.740 argued it was just a theatrical prop, not a working 00:09:07.740 --> 00:09:10.250 product. And they were right. It was later disclosed 00:09:10.250 --> 00:09:12.909 that the tiles on stage were indeed non -functional 00:09:12.909 --> 00:09:15.110 fakes. And that is exactly the kind of victory 00:09:15.110 --> 00:09:17.610 that fuels a crowdsourced intelligence group. 00:09:17.690 --> 00:09:20.730 Oh, for sure. When they expose a literal stage 00:09:20.730 --> 00:09:23.409 prop, it validates their deepest skepticism. 00:09:24.070 --> 00:09:26.169 It proves to them that they can't trust what 00:09:26.169 --> 00:09:28.230 they're shown. Yeah. And they took that exact 00:09:28.230 --> 00:09:30.309 same skepticism and applied it to the factory 00:09:30.309 --> 00:09:33.879 floor. specifically targeting the concept of 00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:36.179 the alien dreadnought. Right, the alien dreadnought. 00:09:36.539 --> 00:09:38.960 So Elon Musk had promised to build a fully automated 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:41.440 state -of -the -art factory for the mass production 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:44.679 of the Model 3. He described it as an unstoppable 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:47.220 alien dreadnought. Yeah, effectively a machine 00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:49.720 that builds the machine. The narrative was that 00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:51.960 human hands wouldn't even need to be on the factory 00:09:51.960 --> 00:09:54.500 floor. It sounded like a science fiction utopia. 00:09:54.659 --> 00:09:57.440 But TSLAQ didn't just take his word for it. No. 00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:01.720 They actually flew drones over the Fremont, California 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:03.799 factory. And what did that drone footage reveal? 00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:07.419 Tents. Literally people building cars by hand 00:10:07.419 --> 00:10:10.100 inside giant temporary tent structures outside 00:10:10.100 --> 00:10:12.419 the main facility. It fundamentally shattered 00:10:12.419 --> 00:10:15.539 the automated utopia narrative. It did. But this 00:10:15.539 --> 00:10:17.759 raises an important question, though. When you 00:10:17.759 --> 00:10:21.500 have a massive decentralized group fundamentally 00:10:21.500 --> 00:10:24.899 biased toward finding failure, you are inevitably 00:10:24.899 --> 00:10:27.600 going to get noise along with the signal. Here's 00:10:27.600 --> 00:10:29.980 where it gets really interesting. You know, if 00:10:29.980 --> 00:10:33.220 you are a group actively flying drones, trolling 00:10:33.220 --> 00:10:36.919 through SEC filings and proving the CEO wrong 00:10:36.919 --> 00:10:40.179 about his factory, do you eventually start seeing 00:10:40.179 --> 00:10:42.799 ghosts everywhere? Yeah, exactly. How do you 00:10:42.799 --> 00:10:45.779 as an observer separate the highly valid critiques 00:10:45.779 --> 00:10:48.320 like exposing the fake solar shingles or the 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:51.019 hand -built cars from the outlandish conspiracy 00:10:51.019 --> 00:10:53.639 theories that the sources explicitly state were 00:10:53.639 --> 00:10:56.220 also floating around the TSLAQ community? It 00:10:56.220 --> 00:10:59.080 is the inherent danger of crowdsourced intelligence. 00:10:59.419 --> 00:11:01.360 As Business Insider noted, the community exchanged 00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:04.259 brilliant rigorous research, but they also signal 00:11:04.259 --> 00:11:06.399 -boosted baseless conspiracies. Because they 00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:08.820 want to find the flaws so badly. Right. The inherent 00:11:08.820 --> 00:11:11.080 bias of a short seller means they view every 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:13.279 single corporate misstep, every delayed product, 00:11:13.620 --> 00:11:16.320 not as a normal business mistake, but as definitive 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:18.940 evidence of a grand, fatal deception. So for 00:11:18.940 --> 00:11:21.960 anyone watching this ecosystem play out, it requires 00:11:21.960 --> 00:11:25.720 rigorous objective synthesis. You have to constantly 00:11:25.720 --> 00:11:28.879 fact check both the polished corporate PR machine 00:11:28.879 --> 00:11:32.679 and the dedicated highly biased anti -fandom. 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:35.200 Because eventually all that digital sleuthing 00:11:35.200 --> 00:11:37.460 all the drone flights and the forensic accounting 00:11:37.460 --> 00:11:40.480 it Couldn't stay contained to spreadsheets and 00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:43.019 Reddit threads. No. When billions of dollars 00:11:43.019 --> 00:11:45.519 are on the line, the digital wall breaks down. 00:11:45.779 --> 00:11:48.279 The conflict inevitably spilled over into the 00:11:48.279 --> 00:11:51.019 real world, culminating in some incredibly high 00:11:51.019 --> 00:11:54.279 stakes legal battles. And the poster child for 00:11:54.279 --> 00:11:57.779 this escalation is a TSLEQ member named Randy 00:11:57.779 --> 00:12:00.580 Pothi. Yes. Operating under the online handle 00:12:00.580 --> 00:12:03.539 Scubuska, Randy Pothi became central to the physical 00:12:03.539 --> 00:12:05.379 manifestation of this conflict. What happened? 00:12:05.519 --> 00:12:09.120 In April of 2019, Tesla filed a lawsuit and requested 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:11.840 a restraining order against him. And the allegations 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.340 they laid out were severe, detailing two specific 00:12:14.340 --> 00:12:16.600 incidents of alleged physical endangerment. Right. 00:12:16.700 --> 00:12:19.759 The first incident was in February 2019. Tesla 00:12:19.759 --> 00:12:21.679 claimed who he was found sitting in his car in 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:23.519 the parking lot of the Fremont factory. Just 00:12:23.519 --> 00:12:26.029 waiting there. Yeah. And when security ordered 00:12:26.029 --> 00:12:28.870 him to leave, the company alleged he sped out 00:12:28.870 --> 00:12:31.429 of the lot at high speed and nearly struck a 00:12:31.429 --> 00:12:33.909 Tesla employee. And then two months later, in 00:12:33.909 --> 00:12:37.429 April 2019, Tesla alleged a second incident. 00:12:37.870 --> 00:12:41.169 This is the highway one. Exactly. Huthy spotted 00:12:41.169 --> 00:12:44.230 a Tesla vehicle out on the public highway. This 00:12:44.230 --> 00:12:46.730 car was fitted with numerous camera systems, 00:12:46.750 --> 00:12:49.590 and there were personnel inside. Huthy believed 00:12:49.590 --> 00:12:52.549 it was a test car demonstrating and filming Tesla's 00:12:52.549 --> 00:12:55.470 autopilot capabilities. Right. So he proceeded 00:12:55.470 --> 00:12:57.690 to film the vehicle himself while driving alongside 00:12:57.690 --> 00:13:00.490 it, and Tesla's lawsuit alleged that he drove 00:13:00.490 --> 00:13:03.149 erratically and dangerously while doing so. So 00:13:03.149 --> 00:13:05.610 you have a situation where a massive corporation 00:13:05.610 --> 00:13:08.389 is leveraging the legal system against an individual 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:11.240 citizen researcher eliting physical endangerment. 00:13:11.639 --> 00:13:13.580 But I have to push back hard on who these actions 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:15.799 here, because trawling through warranty reserves 00:13:15.799 --> 00:13:18.299 on a spreadsheet is one thing. Digging up court 00:13:18.299 --> 00:13:21.100 filings is legal research, but chasing down a 00:13:21.100 --> 00:13:23.779 test vehicle on a public highway, prowling around 00:13:23.779 --> 00:13:26.620 employee parking lots. It gets sketchy. At what 00:13:26.620 --> 00:13:30.440 point does the TSLAQ community justify crossing 00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:33.700 that line from financial analyst to physical 00:13:33.700 --> 00:13:36.759 stalker? It feels like the obsession completely 00:13:36.759 --> 00:13:39.399 overrode basic safety. Well, that is the danger 00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:42.240 of this decentralized framework. There's no HR 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:44.779 department. There's no code of conduct. But what 00:13:44.779 --> 00:13:47.500 is truly remarkable is how the TSLAQ community 00:13:47.500 --> 00:13:49.580 responded to the lawsuit. Right, they didn't 00:13:49.580 --> 00:13:52.019 disavow him at all. No, they fully backed him. 00:13:52.059 --> 00:13:55.409 They doubled down. Lawrence Fossey, the guy who's 00:13:55.409 --> 00:13:58.809 doxing started the whole unified group, he spearheads 00:13:58.809 --> 00:14:01.769 a GoFundMe campaign for Huthi's legal defense. 00:14:01.970 --> 00:14:04.429 And they raise over $100 ,000. And we really 00:14:04.429 --> 00:14:06.409 need to understand the mechanism of what that 00:14:06.409 --> 00:14:09.250 means. Yeah. Usually a massive corporation uses 00:14:09.250 --> 00:14:12.490 a lawsuit to financially bleed a loan critic 00:14:12.490 --> 00:14:14.669 into submission. Right. That's the entire mechanism 00:14:14.669 --> 00:14:16.529 of corporate deterrence. You bury them in legal 00:14:16.529 --> 00:14:18.809 fees until they shut up. But Fossey's GoFundMe 00:14:18.809 --> 00:14:21.429 completely neutralized Tesla's financial advantage. 00:14:21.659 --> 00:14:24.500 They essentially crowd -sourced a legal shield 00:14:24.500 --> 00:14:27.220 that allowed Huthy to fight back on equal footing 00:14:27.220 --> 00:14:29.320 during the discovery phase of the trial. And 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:31.720 that equal footing completely changed the calculus 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:34.419 of the lawsuit. How so? Because during that discovery 00:14:34.419 --> 00:14:36.799 phase, regarding the April Highway incident, 00:14:37.320 --> 00:14:40.039 it was revealed that Tesla had internal cameras 00:14:40.039 --> 00:14:43.389 recording inside the test car. Ah, okay. But 00:14:43.389 --> 00:14:46.190 Tesla outright refused to produce that internal 00:14:46.190 --> 00:14:48.750 footage for the court. They argued that releasing 00:14:48.750 --> 00:14:51.350 the video risked the safety and privacy of the 00:14:51.350 --> 00:14:53.950 employees involved. Ultimately, rather than produce 00:14:53.950 --> 00:14:56.909 the evidence, Tesla chose to drop the lawsuit 00:14:56.909 --> 00:14:59.289 and the request for the temporary restraining 00:14:59.289 --> 00:15:02.350 order against Hokey entirely. Wow. And what about 00:15:02.350 --> 00:15:05.110 the February parking lot incident where he allegedly 00:15:05.770 --> 00:15:08.210 Almost hit an employee. Well, the local Fremont 00:15:08.210 --> 00:15:10.409 police actually reviewed the surveillance camera 00:15:10.409 --> 00:15:13.070 footage from the parking lot. And after watching 00:15:13.070 --> 00:15:15.470 it, they declined to press any charges against 00:15:15.470 --> 00:15:18.769 Houthi whatsoever. That is wild. But the story 00:15:18.769 --> 00:15:21.669 doesn't end there. Having successfully crowdsourced 00:15:21.669 --> 00:15:24.509 his defense, Houthi decides to go on the offensive. 00:15:24.610 --> 00:15:28.070 Oh, yeah. In August of 2020, he sued Elon Musk 00:15:28.070 --> 00:15:31.110 directly for defamation. Right. This defamation 00:15:31.110 --> 00:15:33.370 suit stemmed from an email exchange Musk had 00:15:33.370 --> 00:15:36.500 with a man named Aaron Greenspan. Greenspan is 00:15:36.500 --> 00:15:39.000 the owner of a transparency site called Plainsight. 00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:42.139 In that email, Musk explicitly accused Hathi 00:15:42.139 --> 00:15:45.779 of having almost -kill Tesla employees. And Musk's 00:15:45.779 --> 00:15:47.980 legal team tried to get the lawsuit thrown out 00:15:47.980 --> 00:15:51.059 immediately by utilizing what are known as anti 00:15:51.059 --> 00:15:53.779 -CellAPP laws. Let's break down how that works, 00:15:53.779 --> 00:15:55.919 because it's a fascinating legal maneuver. Yeah, 00:15:55.960 --> 00:15:59.919 please do. So SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:03.539 Against Public Participation. Anti -SLAPP laws 00:16:03.539 --> 00:16:05.899 were originally designed to protect regular people 00:16:05.899 --> 00:16:07.759 and journalists from being bullied by powerful 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:10.500 entities with frivolous lawsuits aimed at chilling 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:13.460 free speech. But Musk tried to invert this. Exactly. 00:16:13.659 --> 00:16:16.799 He used the anti -SLAPP law to argue that Houthi's 00:16:16.799 --> 00:16:19.440 defamation suit was actually an attack on Musk's 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:21.539 own right to free speech. But the courts didn't 00:16:21.539 --> 00:16:25.460 buy it. In January 2021, a judge completely rejected 00:16:25.460 --> 00:16:28.340 Musk's anti -cell APP motion. And then Musk appealed, 00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:31.600 right? He did. And in January 2022, the appeal 00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:34.100 was denied again. The courts basically stated 00:16:34.100 --> 00:16:36.299 that Houthi's defamation claim had enough merit 00:16:36.299 --> 00:16:38.899 that it needed to go to a full trial. Wow. Ultimately, 00:16:38.899 --> 00:16:41.299 they never made it to a courtroom. In April of 00:16:41.299 --> 00:16:43.480 2023, the party settled the defamation suit, 00:16:43.580 --> 00:16:46.139 with Houthi receiving $10 ,000. So what does 00:16:46.139 --> 00:16:48.340 this all mean for you, the listener? We've gone 00:16:48.340 --> 00:16:50.399 from anonymous people looking at balance sheets 00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:54.470 on Twitter to exposing stage props to a guy allegedly 00:16:54.470 --> 00:16:57.049 driving erratically on a highway, leading to 00:16:57.049 --> 00:17:00.029 massive defamation lawsuits and a hundred thousand 00:17:00.029 --> 00:17:02.909 dollar crowd source defense funds. If we connect 00:17:02.909 --> 00:17:05.369 this to the bigger picture, this entire saga 00:17:05.369 --> 00:17:08.450 perfectly illustrates the chaotic modern reality 00:17:08.450 --> 00:17:11.450 of corporate accountability. The Internet has 00:17:11.450 --> 00:17:14.210 completely democratized investigation. It allows 00:17:14.210 --> 00:17:16.789 a decentralized group of anonymous individuals 00:17:16.789 --> 00:17:19.670 to effectively challenge the narrative of a multibillion 00:17:19.670 --> 00:17:22.500 dollar corporation. which historically was almost 00:17:22.500 --> 00:17:24.859 impossible. Right, but that democratization is 00:17:24.859 --> 00:17:27.299 inherently messy. Very messy. It lacks any kind 00:17:27.299 --> 00:17:29.799 of oversight. It creates real -world consequences 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:32.240 where the line between an earnest financial researcher 00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:35.220 and a dangerous provocateur completely blurs. 00:17:35.339 --> 00:17:38.460 It really forces us to ask how society should 00:17:38.460 --> 00:17:41.119 mediate these massive asymmetries of information 00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:44.440 and power. It is an absolute wild ride. To quickly 00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:46.819 recap our journey today, we watched an anonymous 00:17:46.819 --> 00:17:49.420 collective forum out of the ashes of a doxed 00:17:49.420 --> 00:17:52.869 financial blogger. We saw them meticulously decode 00:17:52.869 --> 00:17:55.150 warranty reserves to challenge the company's 00:17:55.150 --> 00:17:57.210 financial narrative. We watched them uncover 00:17:57.210 --> 00:18:00.349 hand -built cars hiding in tents. instead of 00:18:00.349 --> 00:18:02.549 automated alien dreadnoughts. We tracked them 00:18:02.549 --> 00:18:04.750 as they correctly called out fake solar panels 00:18:04.750 --> 00:18:07.490 on a presentation stage. And we watched the whole 00:18:07.490 --> 00:18:10.769 thing physically escalate into high -speed highway 00:18:10.769 --> 00:18:14.250 confrontations, crowdsourced legal shields, and 00:18:14.250 --> 00:18:17.029 defamation settlements. It is the absolute peak 00:18:17.029 --> 00:18:19.470 of the modern information age, a place where 00:18:19.470 --> 00:18:22.910 absolute truth, billions of dollars, and obsessive 00:18:22.910 --> 00:18:26.160 internet culture violently collide. It is. And 00:18:26.160 --> 00:18:27.859 I want to leave you with a final thought to mull 00:18:27.859 --> 00:18:30.619 over. Okay. If a decentralized, anonymous group 00:18:30.619 --> 00:18:33.180 of Internet users can effectively run a global 00:18:33.180 --> 00:18:35.400 surveillance financial and research operation 00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:37.500 on a multi -billion dollar company grounding 00:18:37.500 --> 00:18:40.619 drones, tracking legal filings, and crowdsourcing 00:18:40.619 --> 00:18:43.259 legal defense funds to neutralize corporate power, 00:18:43.559 --> 00:18:45.980 what happens when this exact same crowdsourced 00:18:45.980 --> 00:18:48.299 scrutiny is pointed at our political institutions? 00:18:48.460 --> 00:18:51.619 Oh, wow. or our local governments, or even private 00:18:51.619 --> 00:18:54.319 individuals. The tools for uncovering the truth 00:18:54.319 --> 00:18:57.079 are more powerful and accessible than ever before, 00:18:57.420 --> 00:19:00.279 but are we truly prepared as a society for who 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:02.900 is wielding them? That is an incredible question, 00:19:03.240 --> 00:19:04.900 because as we talked about at the very beginning, 00:19:05.339 --> 00:19:07.440 a fandom is powerful when it's built on love. 00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:10.880 But an anti -fandom built on proving a dominant 00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:13.319 narrative wrong might just be the most relentless, 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:15.809 unstoppable force on the internet. Thank you 00:19:15.809 --> 00:19:17.869 so much for taking this deep dive with us. Keep 00:19:17.869 --> 00:19:19.630 questioning the narrative and we will catch you 00:19:19.630 --> 00:19:20.029 next time.