Video of a Tesla luxury electric car burning after an apparent battery problem went crazy time all over the internet and major news organizations across the US yesterday. But while a battery malfunction at the darling of the electric car industry would be news worthy, what if it was a hoax designed to profit from short-selling Tesla stock, which plummeted in the wake of the incident? Importantly, the company reportedly said in a statement that the fire was caused when the driver struck road debris which triggered the battery fire.
The stock regained much of its losses Friday morning.
This allegation certainly strays into conspiracy-theory territory – which is always dangerous because proof is elusive – but the scam suggested below appears feasible at first glance. This comment posted on You Tube around 8:00 am EDT Friday:
Top Comments
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It’s quite simple actually.
-Hire an actor.
-Buy a Tesla.
-Sabotage the car and film it at the side of a road.
-Post it to Youtube and arrange the homepage ad fee. (How do you think it got to the front page with over a million views within 2 days.)
-Short TSLA stock making all the finance back + more.
-Let the news machine do what they do best.
Somebody is making a lot of money off the decline of TSLA stock whilst trying to kill the electric car industry all in one blow, again!
It sounds a bit far-fetched (and slightly brilliant in an evil genius sort of way), but provides food for thought if nothing else. Killing the entire electric car industry because of one accidental battery fire is just plain silly, but profiting from manipulating the company’s stock in this manner would seem hard to rule out.
Tesla posted this reaction to the incident on it’s blog.
