[conspire] Meanwhile, in birdland Dead!

[Rick Moen]

I had, until recently, been among the many people fooled by the claim
that Musk was founder of Tesla Motors, Inc. (now renamed to Tesla, Inc.).

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2022 10:02:55 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: skeptic at linuxmafia.com
Subject: Re: [skeptic] [EXTERNAL]Re:  Republicans to America: Drop Dead!
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Quoting Michael Sofka (sofkam at rpi.edu):

> Ah, Empty Wheel:
> 
> https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/11/18/three-things-twitter-death-watch-in-progress/

Thanks.

> Had a link to the Internet Archive:
> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20221117193658/https://twitter.com/capitolhunters/status/159330754193247

https://web.archive.org/web/20221117193658/https://twitter.com/capitolhunters/status/1593307541932474368

> The claim is Elmo doesn't have any technical degree, and was for a
> time an illegal alien, having dropped out of school on his student
> visa, and so on.  It is long, and I cannot vouch for its accuracy,
> except that upon seeing the thread during the Twitter Death Watch my
> first thought was "wasn't this already common knowledge?" 

The claim that he lied about an alleged Physics baccalaureate (and
doesn't have one) has been making the rounds, and is from an opposing
counsel's brief in my local county Superior Court, in 2009 case 
CIV484400, "Eberhard v. Musk" which reproduces what's claimed to have been
a August 17, 1999 Salon.com story where someone is claimed to have
trotted out the bogus "Physics degree" claim.

https://www.sanmateocourt.org/midx/strip.php?co123=3vg7w verifies that
CIV484400 was indeed a real case between those parties (and Telsa
Motors, Inc. was also a party), with file date 05-26-2009.

Entering the case number into
https://odyportal-ext.sanmateocourt.org/Portal-External/Home/Dashboard/29
brings up more case details.  Eberhard was the plaintiff, Musk and Tesla
Motors, Inc. defendants.  Plaintiff was bringing a civil lawsuit for
defamation and breach of contract, and payment of overdue wages, and 
failure to provide wage statements, and "conversion" (the civil law
version of theft), and various damages/costs/penalties, which suit
ultimately was dismissed.  

Complaint says Eberhard and another fellow (Mark Tarpenning) founded the
Tesla company, gave it its name, and brought its first product, the
Roadster, to market, attracting Musk as one of its large investors. 
Musk then, per the complaint, took various actions claimed harmful
to the company including ejecting Eberhard, but then allegedly started
dissing Eberhard and taking credit for his work.  Various particulars
were listed, including a claim that the newly Muskified Tesla wrecked
Eberhard's personal Roadster (#2 off the production line) before
delivering it to him.   And it's claimed that the Muskified company 
then went on to breach lots of contractual obligations to Eberhard.

There's lots of other dirt about Musk being claimed to have lied about
this-and-that credential including supposedly having claimed to have
been enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Stanford and never having enrolled
there at all.  And so on.  

The stuff alleging lying about a UoP Physics degree is on page 18 of
Eberhard's complaint, cross-referencing a claimed copy of the August 17,
1999, salon.com article included as Exhibit 32 -- plus copies of similar
claims in the press in a number of other places.

Anyway, yes, the apparent photocopies of stories in the exhibits
between Salon.com and the other news outlets do include an apparently
baseless claim of UoP Physics degree, which error they must have gotten
from somewhere.  Perhaps it fell off a truck.  *cough*

I could possibly figure out how defence got CIV484400 dismissed 
if I delved through the avalanche of other, subsequent briefs and
motions in the case, but don't think I'm going to take the time to try.

I didn't take the time to birddog the other claims about illegal alien,
dropping out of school on a student visa, or anything else.

It's not a good idea to call people habitual liars, because of tort
exposure, but, gosh, a lot of grandiose but false claims about Musk 
sure do tend to fall off trucks into news articles, don't they?


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