Is he a stalker or just a very meticulous researcher? An American judge will decide

Is Randeep Hothi a stalker, a stalker, a perpetrator of violence and an imminent threat? Or is he a mild-minded scholar engaged in such unorthodox legal research for his investments?

Is Tesla's Elon Musk a bully who uses his wealth, power and Twitter account to silence critics? Or is he just trying to protect his employees from possible damage?

These questions are being asked in a US court, where Tesla is seeking a permanent prohibition order against Hothi.

Tesla says that Hothi struck a Tesla security employee with his vehicle in his California assembly plant and that he then endangered Tesla Model 3 workers who were testing a driverless technology at speed on Interstate 880 between Fremont and Oakland from the Bay Bridge.

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Hothi, a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan and Tesla critic who lives near the Fremont factory, said Tesla was lying to dirty him and shut him up.

The case took a positive turn in favor of Hothi last week, when Judge Jeffrey Brand supported a request from his lawyers asking Tesla to broadcast video recordings that they deem relevant to the case. The mark ordered Tesla to turn the videos – along with all relevant photographs and audio recordings – before July 16th.

Tesla asked the judge to ban the media from holding new hearings. The judge refused to do so.

Hothi is part of a group of short sellers on Twitter and other Tesla critics called $ TslaQ. Participants monitor Tesla for flaws in his business model and prove that the company's share price is far superior to what it should be, depending on the fundamentals of the company . Many of them, including Hothi, bet on falling stock prices, which has been the case for most recently. It closed at 230.34 USD Monday, down 1.2% that day and 27% year on year.

Another member of the group, Lawrence Fossi, an investment manager who goes through the Montana Skeptic Twitter account, has created a GoFundMe page for Hothi's legal fees. Until now, it has raised 118,000 USD.

According to the Hothi court's response to Tesla's accusations, "Tesla has long used the judiciary to silence its critics." The document evoked the widely publicized story of Martin Tripp, a former employee turned pitcher, claiming that Tesla had knowingly manufactured and sold defective batteries. "Tesla's chief executive, Musk, has decided to destroy him," the court said in an answer.

Tesla sued Tripp for 167 million US dollars. An anonymous correspondent had contacted the company to tell him that Tripp was planning to shoot en masse, a report sent to the police. according to Bloomberg Businessweek"Tesla's public relations department spread rumors that Tripp was probably a homicide and was part of a big conspiracy" and the company fired another whistleblower, the former manager of Tesla's security, Sean Gouthro.

Tesla said at the time that the allegations about Tripp were "false and sensational". The case is pending before the US District Court of Nevada.

After Fossi's identity was revealed last year, Musk called the boss of Fossi and threatened a lawsuit. And Hothi's court case cited the case of Tesla Regional Director Adam Williams, who informed the superiors that employees were knowingly selling defective cars. the document states that Williams was demoted and then fired. He sued Tesla last year. Tesla said at the time that Williams had been fired only for poor performance and that his pursuit had "no merit" and "this is not consistent with the fact that we rank at first rank in terms of customer satisfaction of any car brand ".

Musk, openly contemptuous of short sellers on Twitter, may be particularly sensitive to criticism of the company's autonomous driving technology, a key strategic program whose successes and failures will inevitably affect the course of its actions.

Hothi had overseen the production of the Tesla assembly plant, counting the cars to match Tesla's production claims. He often took pictures just outside the factory and sometimes placed a camera (on a public property, he said) to record activity remotely. He posted his comments under the Skabooshka Twitter account.

On February 21, Hothi sits in his car in an area of ​​the Fremont factory parking lot open to the public, near a Tesla sales showroom. When confronted by a security officer, Tesla testified in court documents that Hothi had "fled the scene" and "hit his security guard, Tyler James, with his car," causing minor injuries ".

The Fremont police reviewed the case and found that she was not encountering the elements of a hit and run, according to court records filed by Hothi 's attorney.

The police forwarded the case to the county attorney's office, which refused to prosecute, stating that there was no sufficient evidence to prove that Hothi had hit James with his car, according to the court records. Hothi never returned to the Fremont factory after that day, said his lawyer.

On April 16, according to Tesla, three employees sat in a model 3 equipped with photographic equipment while testing the autonomous driving capabilities of the car. The company said in court that Hothi "chased" the employees for 35 minutes, "driving ahead, behind and behind them and dangerously near the vehicle," perhaps to provoke a reaction from the car's autonomous system. Employees feared that "Hothi's driving on the road would cause a collision and injure them". Hothi said that these statements are false.

In a court response, Hothi's lawyer said: "Randeep was conducting critical research on Tesla's extravagant claims" about the capabilities of his "autonomous driving" systems.

"I did not make any differences on a vehicle," Hothi said in an interview. He assumed that the video footage shot that day would be used for marketing purposes, said Hothi's lawyer, D. Gill Sperlein. Hothi intended to record the ride of the car in order to compare it to any modified version that Tesla could display in the future.

After this incident, Tesla applied for and obtained a temporary restraining order against Hothi.

Sperlein cited the camera system mounted on the test car and the eight cameras generally installed on all Teslas to allow autonomous driving, in its request that the company provide images to be used as evidence.

The case is pending before a court that specializes in workplace harassment and other cases involving prohibition applications. On the same day, Hothi's hearings began, Judge Brand heard a case involving a dispute between a bus driver and a retired bus driver, and another about a long-standing dispute between two neighbors. aged, in which one of them allegedly brandished his march. stick like a weapon and the other took out a knife and swore to "open you like a fish". To speed up the process, judicial discovery – the process of gathering evidence from the other side – is usually not allowed.

In the case of Tesla, however, the judge made an exception in writing that, despite the company's objections based on confidentiality and privacy, among other things, "the production of such records would impose a minimal burden on parts".

He added: "If a party was in possession of such recordings and decided not to present them at the trial, then the court might be inclined to exert an adverse influence."

Hothi said The temperature he believes that no video exists showing that he was driving in the way that Tesla claims.

Tesla did not respond to requests for comments.

The next hearing is scheduled for July 26th.