<h2>FUTURE YE</h2>
&#8220;I really love my Tesla. I&#8217;m in the future. Thank you Elon.&#8221;
In <a href="https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/988239336788279296?lang=en">one tweet</a>, Kanye pretty much summed up the A-list hip-hop community&#8217;s growing affinity for Teslas. As <a href="https://pitchfork.com/levels/why-tesla-is-hip-hops-new-car-of-choice/">Pitchfork meticulously documented</a>, artists from Big Sean to Juicy J have mentioned it in their rhymes; Jaden Smith moonwalks in front of one in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmc8q2dcIMs">the video</a> for &#8220;ICON.&#8221;
Why has the hip-hop world, long impressed by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtSDWq6HsJE">Benzes</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXnMSaK6C2w">&#8216;Raris</a>, now embraced a car that&#8217;s <a href="https://www.caranddriver.com/tesla">intended to be affordable</a> and attainable for the masses? There are tax cuts for these things — plus you have to plug them in. How unsexy is that?
The reason, according to Pitchfork, has something to do with Musk himself:
<blockquote>Rapper interest in Tesla is twofold: They love any implication of innovation or any association with the cutting edge, and they are amused by the supercar’s toys and gadgets. Elon Musk is viewed by rappers as a futurist, a mega-genius of limitless potential and possibility, and so the Tesla is perceived as the vehicle of tomorrow.</blockquote>
<h2>EVS WITH CACHE</h2>
Among the haute, pricey brands often <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/statistical-analysis-of-rap-and-fashion-designers">name-checked in rap songs</a>, Tesla stands alone in its potential to actually have an effect on global warming.
The average consumer vehicle produces <a href="https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle">4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide</a> per year. At the rate we&#8217;re dumping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/can-we-still-limit-warming-to-two-degrees">we&#8217;re not likely</a> to limit our warming to the semi-non-disastrous <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-climate-changes-2-degrees-celsius-of-warming-limit-so-important-82058">2 degrees Celsius</a>. For now, experts are predicting the <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/">effects of warming</a> — more intense storms, rising seas, expanding deserts — could get much worse.
Widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) could put a pretty serious dent in our emissions.
<h2>GAS IN THE VIP</h2>
We&#8217;re not there yet — gas guzzlers are still the norm. So anyone who can get more people to buy EVs is helping the planet, whether they&#8217;re standing in front of the United Nations or the DJ while drinking Hennessey.
It&#8217;s not clear whether rapper mentions have led to increased Tesla sales. But there&#8217;s no doubt it&#8217;s good PR. And since Musk can arguably be a <a href="https://futurism.com/electric-cars-tesla-elon-musk-pedo-guy/">liability</a> to his companies (Tesla in particular), a little extra positive marketing certainly wouldn&#8217;t hurt.
READ MORE: Objectified: Why Tesla Is Hip-Hop’s New Car of Choice [<a href="https://pitchfork.com/levels/why-tesla-is-hip-hops-new-car-">Pitchfork</a>]
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-public-stakes-higher/">Tesla’s Staying Public. Now The Stakes Are Even Higher.</a>

Giving electric cars more cache might be a good way to get more on the road, reducing our carbon footprint.

Rappers are making Tesla sexy, which might be good for the planet

Future Society

Rappers love Tesla because it represents the future. By making the brand look cool, they might be getting more people to buy electric vehicles.

Rappers Are Making Tesla Sexy, Which Might Be Good For the Planet

Teslas are a sleek version of what the future could be, and rappers want to be on the cutting edge.

BLAST OFF. At 1:18 AM E.T., SpaceX&#8217;s Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Its primary purpose is to launch a 5.8-ton satellite called Merah Putih intended to improve telecommunications in Indonesia, India, and much of Southeast Asia.
But for SpaceX aficionados, the most exciting part of this launch is that we&#8217;ve seen part of it before. Yes, the first stage was just used in <a href="https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/05/11/watch-a-replay-of-the-first-falcon-9-block-5-launch/">a launch back in May</a> that sent Bangladeshi communications satellite Bangabandhu into orbit.
Now, just a few months later, it&#8217;s back again. The dream of cost-effective reusable rockets might not be so far-fetched, after all.
<figure id="attachment_135366" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-135366 size-large" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-07-at-1.16.09-AM-1200x871.png" alt="" width="1200" height="871" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The Falcon 9 rocket shortly before liftoff. Screenshot from SpaceX livestream by Alexandra Ossola</figcaption></figure>
REUSE, REUSE, REUSE. This launch is the first to employ a reused <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJSPcVTmZIs">Block 5</a> — the first stage of the rocket. The Block 5, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-is-about-to-launch-its-final-block-4-falcon/">unlike previous models</a>, is designed to need little taking-apart and refurbishment in between launches. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk <a href="https://spacenews.com/musk-details-block-5-improvements-to-falcon-9/">has called Block 5 </a>&#8220;the most reliable rocket ever built.&#8221;
But SpaceX engineers needed to actually make sure that was true, that after its first use Block 5 would be ready to get out there again. So after the May launch, Musk said, &#8220;Ironically, we need to take it apart to confirm it does not need to be taken apart,&#8221; as <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/tonight-spacex-to-reuse-its-first-block-5-variant-of-the-falcon-9/">Ars Technica reports</a>. Though SpaceX hasn&#8217;t released much about what they found when they did take the Block 5 apart, the quick turnaround between launches indicates that Block 5 seems to be living up to that promise.
STICK THE LANDING. If SpaceX has its way, this won&#8217;t be the last mission for this Block 5, either. The  first stage successfully landed on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, which was waiting in position in the Atlantic Ocean (a camera feed loss at the moment of landing created a bit of extra drama).
If it works, we may very well see the same Block 5 again, perhaps in just a few short months. If that happens, we&#8217;d see the same Block 5 launch a whopping three times in just one year.
Update 1:46 AM ET: We&#8217;ve just completed the second burn. The Merah Putih satellite is ready to be deployed.
Update 1:50 AM ET: Merah Putih is in position. The successful mission is complete. 
READ MORE: <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/tonight-spacex-to-reuse-its-first-block-5-variant-of-the-falcon-9/">SpaceX set to re-fly a Block 5 rocket for the first time tonight</a> [Ars Technica]
MORE ABOUT SPACEX: <a href="https://futurism.com/falcon-9-block-4-launch-spacex/">SpaceX Will Be Ready to Transport Humans in April 2019, NASA Estimates</a>

SpaceX just launched a rocket with a critical reused part

Off World

SpaceX just launched a Falcon 9 rocket. Most notable: it's not the first time we've seen this first stage. This marks the first launch for a reused Block 5.

SpaceX Just Launched A Rocket With A Critical Reused Part

This mission's success shows that the dream of reusable rockets might not be so far-fetched, after all.

00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a
If you&#8217;re an active member of the Bitcoin community on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a?src=hash">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/8spbae/what_is_so_special_about_block/">Reddit</a>, you&#8217;ve probably been thinking about this code for hours, thinking of how it could have possibly gotten into your life. Some examples of flipping out:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
I learned about this tonight. My brain is exploding slowly and severely. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a</a> 
cc <a href="https://twitter.com/coinyeezy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@coinyeezy</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/mwilcox?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mwilcox</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/desantis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@desantis</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/santisiri?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@santisiri</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/yungdeleuze?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@yungdeleuze</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/urbanarson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@urbanarson</a>
&mdash; Zack Voell (@zackvoell) <a href="https://twitter.com/zackvoell/status/1009621173192265728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a</a> has just dosed the best minds of our generation
&mdash; OTIS FUNKMEYER (@otisfunkmeyer) <a href="https://twitter.com/otisfunkmeyer/status/1009662721460039680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
So my mind is melting. Satoshi may be artificial intelligence. And/or time traveling. Maybe quantum computing now exists. Esoteric and metaphysical meaning has found its way to crypto.<a href="https://twitter.com/mwilcox?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mwilcox</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/desantis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@desantis</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a</a>
&mdash; Cosmic Giggle (@TheD3vineOne) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheD3vineOne/status/1009707626924474373?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
Ok, I&#39;m sufficiently shook. This means the Bible itself is likely literal, and also was only JUST written. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a</a>
&mdash; Guy Incognito (@armor123123) <a href="https://twitter.com/armor123123/status/1009649105620987904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Deep breath, guys. We&#8217;re here.
Here&#8217;s what everyone&#8217;s going on about, the most likely explanation behind it, and why it won&#8217;t really change the value of your bitcoin.
<h2>What&#8217;s all the fuss about?</h2>
That code that everyone&#8217;s freaking out about is a block hash, a randomly generated code that documents each new block that&#8217;s mined via an algorithm and gets added to the blockchain ledger. On Wednesday night, a new block appeared, with the hash of 00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a.
Here are the most important elements of that hash, and why it&#8217;s important:
<ul>
<li>The number of 0s at the beginning of the code brought users startlingly close to the block hash for the first block ever created, 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f, otherwise known as the &#8220;<a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172009.0">genesis block</a>.&#8221;</li>
<li>The 21e8 that comes after those 0s. According to <a href="https://medium.com/@coop__soup/00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a-cd4b67d446be">a Medium post</a> by user coop__soup: &#8220;21e8 is important because it signifies an exceptionally simple theory of everything. Often referred to as E8 Theory, it’s a physics preprint proposing a basis for a <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" title="Unified field theory" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noopener noopener noopener nofollow noopener">unified field theory</a>, which attempts to describe all known <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" title="Fundamental interaction" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_interaction" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noopener noopener noopener nofollow noopener">fundamental interactions</a> in physics and to stand as a possible <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" title="Theory of everything" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noopener noopener noopener nofollow noopener">theory of everything</a>.&#8221;</li>
<li>Additional mathematical hoops brought users even closer to digits significant for the founding of Bitcoin.</li>
</ul>
If that all got a little complicated, you don&#8217;t really need to worry about it. All you need to know is that a very important identifier was created.
Driving the hype was the <a href="https://twitter.com/bmiles84/status/1009675509255557120">assumption</a> that these numbers, in this combination, were extremely rare, and, thus, significant.
<h2>So what generated this *very special* code?</h2>
There have been a few theories floating around. Here are the leading ones, and the logic behind them.
<ul>
<li>Time travel. A block with this particular code (and assuming the codes that new blocks are assigned functions in a predictable pattern) is so improbable that you&#8217;d need a lot of time to achieve it. So it&#8217;s an indication that some bitcoin aficionado has mined in the future.</li>
<li>Quantum computing. Like the point above, this explanation rests on the idea that you need a lot of time to arrive at this block hash. One way to cut down the amount of time needed? To operate several mining algorithms simultaneously, which <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/8spbae/what_is_so_special_about_block/e11ehz7">quantum computing allows people to do</a>. But who has the quantum computer? That part is still unclear.</li>
<li>Satoshi himself. The mathematical coincidences (see <a href="https://medium.com/@coop__soup/00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a-cd4b67d446be">the Medium post</a> if you care to learn what they are) are too strong to think that this could be anyone other than Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of the Bitcoin blockchain. Some users think it could be the same computer, if not the same person (or people) who created Bitcoin.</li>
<li>Someone hacked the Bitcoin architecture. Satoshi&#8217;s true identity has <a href="https://blockonomi.com/who-is-satoshi-nakamoto/">never been revealed</a>. Why would they do so in such a confusing way, and why now? It&#8217;s gotta be someone pretending to be Satoshi. And that could only mean one thing: hackers have taken control of the Bitcoin architecture.</li>
<li>Random chance. 0s happen. So does the combo of 21e8. They don&#8217;t mean anything.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Which one is it?</h2>
As these theories have bubbled up in threads on Twitter and Reddit, most users are arriving at the conclusion that this is nothing more than a coincidence.
That jives with how cryptography actually works.
&#8220;There&#8217;s nothing to say about this really, it&#8217;s just a joke,&#8221;<a href="http://soc1024.ece.illinois.edu/"> Andrew Miller</a>, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, tells Futurism via email. &#8220;The phenomenon of having the block begin with the string 21e8 is not even rare, it should happen about once a year.&#8221;
Let&#8217;s break that down a little. As Miller writes, &#8220;There are 16 possibilities for each of the first 4 (nonzero) digits. The probability that a given block begins with the particular string 21e8 is 1/(16*16*16*16), which is about one in one-hundred thousand. The bitcoin blockchain has over 500,000 blocks.&#8221;
So then we end up with this equation: (16 * 16 * 16 * 16) / (24 hours per day * average 6 blocks mined per day)
That means you&#8217;d expect a block with the combination of 21e8 about once a year (or once every 455 days, to be exact). 
&#8220;This isn&#8217;t even the first time that it has happened, e.g. it happened<a href="https://blockchain.info/block/0000000021e8c6e09da17e444ff6b28d0cc7f2cb471b4ac868de07a32ed40114"> in 2009</a> and many other times too,&#8221; Miller points out.
<h2>What effect will this have on the value of bitcoin? </h2>
Honestly? Probably nothing. At the time of publication, <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/price/">the price of bitcoin</a> has dropped about $50 per coin in the past 24 hours, which is pretty typical fluctuation.
As Reddit user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/8spbae/what_is_so_special_about_block/e11ml5n">idlestabilizer wrote</a>, &#8220;I guess it&#8217;s because price action isn&#8217;t that interesting lately and people started to search for new hobbies, like Cryptoesotericism.&#8221; We&#8217;re not saying they&#8217;re right, but we&#8217;re definitely not saying they&#8217;re wrong, either.

Time travel? Quantum computing? Satoshi's true identity? Or just a coincidence?

Here's the conspiracy tearing online bitcoin communities apart

Sci-Fi Visions

Learn about the code that sparked theories in the crypto community and the future effect it will have on the price of bitcoin at Futurism.

The Conspiracy Code Confusing the Crypto Community | Futurism

Here is the secret meaning behind the mysterious 21e8.

Here’s The Conspiracy Tearing Bitcoin Crypto Communities Apart

It&#8217;s the day after the Met Gala, and while the rest of the world is discussing the outfits of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/style/rihanna-dress-met-gala.html">Rihanna</a>, <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/cardi-b-met-gala-jeremy-scott-moschino-pregnant-pregnancy-body-offset">Cardi B</a>, and <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/black-panther-chadwick-boseman-wears-cape-to-met-gala/">Chadwick Boseman</a>, the biggest piece of gossip from the night concerns Elon Musk, the Candian songstress he&#8217;s dating (<a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a20406418/who-is-grimes/">Grimes</a>), and a joke about the idea that A.I. will punish you when they rule the future for not doing everything you can to bring them to power. And who will be joking, then?
<a href="https://pagesix.com/2018/05/07/elon-musk-quietly-dating-musician-grimes/">According to Page Six</a>, the pair met in an fittingly-nerdy way: Twitter. Musk was going to tweet a joke about AI, only to find that Grimes made the same joke three years earlier. And the joke was about something called Roco&#8217;s Basilisk.
So. Roco&#8217;s Basilisk. It&#8217;s a notorious AI thought experiment posted on the future-of-humanity-focused blog LessWrong in 2010 by a user who went by Roko. The idea is that a powerful and otherwise benevolent AI would seek torturous, eternal vengeance on anyone who thought of it but didn&#8217;t do everything in their power to bring it into existence. The &#8220;basilisk&#8221; part, according to the Less Wrong wiki, &#8220;would supposedly put you at risk of torture from this hypothetical agent — a basilisk in this context is any information that harms or endangers the people who hear it.&#8221;
The blog&#8217;s founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, flipped out, and responded in a now-deleted post:
&#8220;Listen to me very closely, you idiot. YOU DO NOT THINK IN SUFFICIENT DETAIL ABOUT SUPERINTELLIGENCES CONSIDERING WHETHER OR NOT TO BLACKMAIL YOU. THAT IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE THING WHICH GIVES THEM A MOTIVE TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON THE BLACKMAIL. You have to be really clever to come up with a genuinely dangerous thought. I am disheartened that people can be clever enough to do that and not clever enough to do the obvious thing and KEEP THEIR IDIOT MOUTHS SHUT about it, because it is much more important to sound intelligent when talking to your friends. This post was STUPID.&#8221;
He &#8220;deemed [the post] a danger to susceptible minds,&#8221; <a href="http://observer.com/2012/07/faith-hope-and-singularity-entering-the-matrix-with-new-yorks-futurist-set/">according to a 2012 New York Observer story about futurists</a>, claimed that readers had nightmares and even a nervous breakdown over it, and ended up deleting the entire thread.
Of course, delete anything on the Internet, and you&#8217;ve created buried treasure — such was Yudkowsky&#8217;s Folly (TM), and the post became the stuff of legend, since. <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/07/roko_s_basilisk_the_most_terrifying_thought_experiment_of_all_time.html">Slate has a good, technical explanation</a> for why the theory is actually terrifying — it hinges on timeless decision theory and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox">Newcomb&#8217;s paradox</a> (but jump down that rabbit hole at your own risk).
CUT TO: 2015, and Grimes made a character for the video of her song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv9YoYCKNoE">Flesh Without Blood</a>&#8221; called — get ready — Rococo basilisk (&#8220;<a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/a-brief-history-of-rococo-art-32790">Rococo</a>,&#8221; for those of you who aren&#8217;t art history buffs, is an ornate style of design). It was intended to be a nod to AI.
And Musk was on the same page. And yesterday, as the news concerning the new couple (Grusk? Elimes?) was about to break, Musk cryptically Tweeted:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
Rococo basilisk
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/993572598381514753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Per Page Six, the explanation:
“Elon was researching the idea of joking about Rococo Basilisk, and when he saw Grimes had already joked about it, he reached out to her. Grimes said this was the first time in three years that anyone understood the joke. They were both poking fun at AI.”
Classic. Hilarious! Except: Who will be laughing when The Sentience finds out about this joke and enslaves these two lovebirds in the Ether mines by way of a back-neck HDMI port? Definitely not those of us who think The Prophet Roko knew what the fuck he was talking about. That&#8217;s who.

Musk seems to have met his match, at least in terms of tweeting jokes about AI.

Here's the deal with that joke that introduced Grimes and Elon Musk

It's a story of internet freak-outs, Twitter kismet, and the insidious idea of omnipotent AI. In other words, the love story of our time.

Grimes, Elon Musk, and the Supposedly Trauma-Inducing A.I. Theory That Brought Them Together

It's the hot gossip from the Met Gala, and, yes, it does have to do with AI.

I&#8217;m walking down the sidewalk, minding my own business. Suddenly, someone zips by, way too close for comfort, on a little platform with wheels. No, it&#8217;s not a skateboard — it has handlebars.
It&#8217;s a freaking scooter. One erratic step and they would have decked me.
Instantly, I hate it, and its rider.
This is an increasingly common experience for people in a growing number of cities — Seattle, Los Angeles, San Jose, Washington D.C., San Francisco. Electric scooters are now all the rage in San Francisco, where they are reportedly wreaking terror on residents.
The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/adults-are-terrorizing-san-francisco-on-tiny-electric-scooters-1524670611?mod=e2fb">Wall Street Journal writes</a>: &#8220;&#8216;All hell broke loose&#8217; after the scooters seemingly arrived overnight in San Francisco, said the city’s supervisor, Aaron Peskin, who is spearheading legislation to regulate scooter-sharing programs. It is, he said, &#8216;a Wild West situation.&#8217;”
I concede, scooters look kind of fun to ride. The ones covering San Francisco like it&#8217;s freakin&#8217; cicada season have little electric motors and can travel up to 15 miles per hour, making it easy to zip up Frisco&#8217;s notorious hills, and to do so in an eco-friendly way.
Investors are certainly excited. Scooter rideshare startup Bird <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bird-fundraising/scooter-sharing-company-bird-raises-100-million-in-new-funding-idUSKCN1GL2U4">recently closed $100 million in funding</a>. One investor said: &#8220;It feels like investing in Uber when it first launched,&#8221; according to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/09/bird-is-raising-100-million-to-become-the-uber-of-electric-scooters/">Tech Crunch</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/apr/25/electric-scooters-urban-transport-bird-santa-monica-uk">T</a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/apr/25/electric-scooters-urban-transport-bird-santa-monica-uk">he Guardian pondered</a>: &#8220;Are ride-share electric scooters the future of urban transport?&#8221;
The answer is a clear no. The reason? Scooters might seem fun for people riding them, but they&#8217;re horrible for everyone else.
First, people are riding them on sidewalks. People get understandably ticked off when they have experiences like mine, not to mention how unwelcome people must feel if they&#8217;re in a wheelchair or otherwise differently abled. Honestly, folks, move that motorized stuff to the street or bike lanes.
Another nuisance: people are littering the scooters wherever they damn well please. They <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wj79jq/san-francisco-is-fighting-the-scooter-trend-with-poop-and-vandalism-bird">end up littered</a> on sidewalks once used for actual walking, in intersections, in trees, in the actual bay. Instead of doing actually important things, San Francisco police <a href="http://abc7news.com/traffic/city-officials-confiscate-dockless-scooters-throughout-san-francisco/3367722/">have to spend their time confiscating</a> these suckers. It&#8217;s reportedly gotten so bad people have called it &#8220;<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/its-wheelmageddon-san-francisco-is-being-overrun-by-venture-backed-scooters">Wheelmageddon</a>.&#8221; And this &#8220;voluntary, intentional, migrating, mobile, functional, litter&#8221; is literally pushing communities apart, according to <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne9gxd/electric-scooters-san-francisco-limebike-the-commons?utm_source=mbfb">an article published in Motherboard</a>.
Also, like with pretty much anything fun, it can be dangerous. Yes, the companies <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BhmebV-FFmb/">hand out free helmets</a> and their terms of service <a href="https://qz.com/1257997/electric-scooters-are-flooding-california-and-theyll-be-on-your-sidewalks-soon/">require riders </a>to don them (as is required by law), but people seem to be treating it as optional.
Indeed, injuries are inevitable. Riders pay little mind to factors that have been shown in the past to <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=118046&amp;page=1">cause an uptick </a>of scooter-related injuries (because <a href="https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/staying-healthy/scooter-related-injury-prevention/">yes this happened</a>), such as their footwear, riding down steep hills, or taking the weather into account.
That&#8217;s important because the number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/hit-and-run-fatalities-soar-as-more-people-bike-to-work-1524735001?mod=e2fb">is up this year</a>, maybe because people are using their smartphones instead of paying attention to the road. I&#8217;m not saying this has happened on a scooter, but I&#8217;m not saying it hasn&#8217;t, either.
People are already taking matters into their own hands; there have been a few reports of <a href="http://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/people-behaving-badly-motorized-scooters-are-being-vandalized-in-san-francisco/1142127585">pooped-on scooters</a> (though it&#8217;s not clear whether that&#8217;s the protestors or riders who are doing that. Honestly it&#8217;s kind of a crapshoot).
Other, more mature folks are calling for regulation. When Bird&#8217;s scooters showed up on the Santa Monica, police issued 97 citations in about a month, and the city filed nine counts of a criminal complaint against Bird, the<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/sudden-appearance-of-electric-scooters-irks-santa-monica-officials/2018/02/10/205f6950-0b4f-11e8-95a5-c396801049ef_story.html?utm_term=.26e421049a54"> Washington Post reports</a>. The city of San Francisco has already <a href="https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/San-Francisco-Issues-Cease-and-Desist-Letter-For-Electric-Scooters-479925473.html">issued a cease and desist</a> for the three scooter companies, and supervisor Aaron Peskin has also <a href="https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&amp;ID=6205257&amp;GUID=CC2884CA-580F-488D-BE3C-DE56D083C301">filed a resolution</a> to regulate the scooters. The city&#8217;s transportation department may also limit the number of scooters each company can have in the city, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-considers-electric-scooter-limits-2018-4">Business Insider reports</a>.
These scooters <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/">could go the way of the failed Chinese bike share program</a>. But I really hope things don&#8217;t turn out that way — instead of ending up in landfills, I hope these scooters can be recycled, so they can become something that&#8217;s actually useful.

Stop trying to get me to ride a scooter. They make everything worse for everyone.

Scooters are definitely not the future of transportation

Advanced Transport

Cities are being overrun by electric scooter rideshares. Some people are convinced they're the future of transport. They're wrong.

Scooters Are Definitely Not the Future of Transportation

They are a fun, dangerous, arrogant hazard. 

You know what&#8217;s not a thing you expect to learn about a company whose CEO<a href="https://futurism.com/mark-zuckerberg-testified-congress-day-1/"> just spent</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/mark-zuckerberg-testified-congress-day-2/">two days</a> in front of Congress justifying how his company uses data?
That federal regulators said its data practices were A-OK during the same period it was doing its shady business. 
That company is, of course, Facebook, and that &#8220;shady business&#8221; is the <a href="https://futurism.com/abuse-facebook-data-cambridge/">now-infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal</a>. Based on <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/facebook-settles-ftc-charges-it-deceived-consumers-failing-keep">a 2011 agreement</a>, Facebook is subject to an audit of its privacy practices to square with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) every two years. On behalf of the FTC, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) audited Facebook&#8217;s practices between February 12, 2015 and February 11, 2017 — exactly the time when Facebook learned of Cambridge Analytica&#8217;s abuse of data.
Documentation of <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/foia_requests/3_2017-00270.pdf">the audit</a>, heavily redacted but available now on the FTC&#8217;s web site, shows that PwC was satisfied with what Facebook was doing to protect user data. The report reads: &#8220;&#8230;The privacy controls were operating with sufficient effectiveness to provide reasonable assurance to protect the privacy of covered information and that the controls have so operated throughout the Reporting Period.&#8221; It&#8217;s not clear whether Facebook told regulators about the Cambridge Analytica abuses.
&#8220;We remain strongly committed to protecting people’s information, ”Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer, Rob Sherman, said in a statement reported by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/audit-clears-facebook-despite-cambridge-analytica-leaks/2018/04/20/5c3e2296-44a6-11e8-b2dc-b0a403e4720a_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.4a264db779d5">multiple</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/facebook-audit-cambridge-analytica.html">outlets</a>. &#8220;We appreciate the opportunity to answer questions the FTC may have.&#8221;
So why was Facebook&#8217;s privacy standard OK then but now we&#8217;re all upset about it? Well, as it turns out, these audits tend to be pretty broad and, in the end, don&#8217;t do much to protect consumers.
&#8220;The agency [FTC] regularly touts its important and extensive work as the chief consumer privacy &#8216;cop on the beat.&#8217; But this chest-thumping can backfire — consumers may more readily share personal information via online platforms based on a belief that the FTC is guarding against misuse,&#8221; Megan Gray, a fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, wrote in <a href="https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2018/04/understanding-improving-privacy-audits-under-ftc-orders">a whitepaper</a> published this week.
During an audit, evaluators don&#8217;t peer into companies&#8217; servers — they&#8217;re<a href="https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/office-inspector-general/oig-audits-and-evaluations"> mostly based on</a> interviews with employees and executives. “That is completely useless. It’s not just toothless, it’s worse than toothless,” Nate Cardozo, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that defends citizens&#8217; digital rights, <a href="https://gizmodo.com/ftc-privacy-audits-of-companies-like-facebook-and-googl-1825387315">told Gizmodo</a>. “It’s asking the fox to guard the henhouse. If the FTC had chosen an auditor and required Facebook to open its servers to any question the auditor had, maybe we wouldn’t have gotten to Cambridge Analytica.”
Change is in the air. Many, including Zuckerberg himself, are calling for Facebook to be regulated. Maybe some of the hammer of reform will fall on the FTC, too.

The company was cleared in a mandatory audit that reviewed its practices between 2015 and 2017.

Regulators told Facebook its use of data was A-OK at a time it definitely was not

When regulators audited Facebook's privacy policy between 2015 and 2017, they found nothing wrong with how the company was using data.

Regulators Told Facebook Its Use of Data Was A-OK At A Time It Definitely Was Not

Maybe audits aren't as rigorous as they should be. 

Scott Pruitt&#8217;s tenure as head of the Environmental Protection Agency has been anything but smooth sailing.
<a href="https://futurism.com/scott-pruitts-epa-evil-transparency/">Disastrous environmental policies</a> aside, Pruitt has come under fire for <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/04/emails-show-epa-staff-was-concerned-that-pruitt-kept-repeating-false-information/">alienating longtime EPA staffers</a>. Has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/us/politics/epa-scott-pruitt-calendar-industries-coal-oil-environmentalists.html">notably opaque</a>, both within the agency and with the public, about who he meets with (many suspect he&#8217;s spending most of his time lending an ear to people from the oil and gas industries). He&#8217;s been criticized repeatedly for ethics violations — from flying first class to excessive spending on security detail to renting an apartment from a lobbyist for cutthroat rate — seemingly <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/982770847046922240">by everyone but the President</a>.
People who care about the environment and (<a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/epa-chief-pruitt-refuses-to-link-co2-and-global-warming/">unlike Pruitt, the head of the E P freakin&#8217; A</a>) believe in climate change, have been calling for his ouster for a good while now.
Now, that <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-18/white-house-will-investigate-pruitt-s-43-000-secure-phone-booth">$43,000 soundproof phone booth</a> (that some believe reeks of corruption) seems to be the final straw. Those calls have reached a fever pitch.
They&#8217;re coming loudly from lawmakers. Yesterday, a bipartisan coalition of 170 Senators and Representatives, led by Senator Tom Udall (D-NM), <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/376735298/Resolution-Calling-on-Resignation-of-EPA-Administrator-Scott-Pruitt">filed a resolution</a> calling for Pruitt to step down.
They call for this action based on, among other reasons, Pruitt&#8217;s &#8220;[misuse of] taxpayer dollars by spending those taxpayer dollars on excessive personal conveniences and unnecessary office enhancements while dramatically cutting budgets and staff for critically important enforcement, research, and implementation activities,&#8221; according to the resolution.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500">
Today, I led a group of 39 senators and 131 representatives in calling on <a href="https://twitter.com/EPAScottPruitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EPAScottPruitt</a> to step down. Our historic resolution sends an unequivocal message to the administration: the American people have lost faith in Pruitt, and it’s time for him to go. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BootPruitt?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BootPruitt</a> <a href="https://t.co/xsDKKC3pwn">pic.twitter.com/xsDKKC3pwn</a>
&mdash; Tom Udall (@SenatorTomUdall) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorTomUdall/status/986677937696071680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
And they&#8217;re coming from the unlikely alliance of labor and civil rights nonprofits. Yesterday, a coalition of NGOs including the NAACP and the Sierra Club, ran full-page ads in three major newspapers, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/18/labor-and-civil-rights-organizations-call-for-epa-chief-scott-pruitts-ouster/?utm_term=.3d6983a8b966">the Washington Post reports</a>.
President Trump would be foolish to ignore these calls. He risks a disagreeable Congress that might not cooperate when he demands immediate action on his pet legislation. He also risks further disapproval from his electorate, who may decide they no longer want Trump&#8217;s easy, breezy, Republican-dominated Congress in this year&#8217;s midterm election.
And, yet, Trump may not heed these calls. Pruitt has done exactly what Trump has wanted him to do (namely, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/02/12/trump-budget-seeks-23-percent-cut-at-epa-would-eliminate-dozens-of-programs/?utm_term=.98b862c654c2">gut the EPA</a>). And continuing to distract people while Pruitt quietly strips away any remaining environmental regulations fits neatly into that plan.
The White House has no choice but to <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/383745-white-house-budget-office-to-investigate-pruitts-soundproof-booth">investigate that pricey phone booth</a>. But for now at least, Pruitt&#8217;s tenure isn&#8217;t over.

Everybody (dozens of Senators, more than 100 Representatives, labor groups and civil rights nonprofits) hates Scott.

Basically everyone wants Scott Pruitt out of office

Earth & Energy

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has questionable ethics. The most recent scandal has legislators and nonprofits calling for his ouster.

Basically Everyone Wants Scott Pruitt Out of Office

It's one of the few things upon which everyone (except the President) pretty much agrees. 

Danya Sherman had an unsettling experience studying abroad in Spain in 2016. A friend, another international student, spiked her drink. She doesn&#8217;t say much about what happened next, except that &#8220;the situation was exploited.&#8221;
Unfortunately, experiences like Sherman&#8217;s are common. About 1 in 13 college students report being drugged, according to <a href="http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/vio-vio0000060.pdf">a 2016 study</a>. Most are women, and 80 percent of those drugged say they experienced &#8220;negative outcomes&#8221; such as sexual assault, blacking out, and getting sick.
But that&#8217;s where Sherman&#8217;s story diverges from the typical. She decided to use the experience to start a company called <a href="http://www.knonap.com/">Kno-Nap</a> (for know-napkin), a discrete napkin that changes color to indicate if a drink has been spiked. She is the founder and CEO of the company, which has grown to a staff of about seven in the past year and a half.
&#8220;I want to create a tool to empower individuals, women and men, in social settings to calm that drug facilitated assault, and I find that there is an intersectionality between consumer products and technology that can work in the future to empower individuals,&#8221; Sherman tells Futurism in a conversation outside the Women in the World Summit, where <a href="https://womenintheworld.com/2018/03/07/you-will-not-believe-what-this-napkin-is-able-to-do-when-a-drop-of-a-drink-is-dripped-on-it/">Sherman was recognized as a Toyota Mother of Invention</a>, on Saturday.
&#8220;70 percent of assaults occur between two people that know each other. With that in mind, we wanted to create a product that empowered people so that you don&#8217;t have to choose between social comfort and your own welfare,&#8221; Sherman adds.
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ll9u3c9eKyI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Kno-Nap, by Sherman&#8217;s description, is incredibly intuitive to use. Its material is sensitive to rohypnols (one of the most common types of date rape drugs). All you have to do is take a small drop of your drink. In two minutes, if rophypnols are present, the napkin will change color, sort of the way a pregnancy test does. And you&#8217;ll be able to tell if your drink is safe to consume.
Since starting her company, Sherman hasn&#8217;t been afraid to change the product that will ultimately work best to fulfill her mission. She started with a stir stick, but had to drop it due to regulatory complications (what would happen if the stick contaminated a drink?), so Kno-Nap was born. &#8220;I didn’t fall in love with the product, I fell in love with mission,&#8221; Sherman said on stage at the summit.
&#8220;I like to stress that my company&#8217;s not a napkin company, we are a safety company,&#8221; Sherman tells Futurism.
Kno-Nap isn&#8217;t on sale yet, though when it is, it will cost about the same as a regular napkin. But Sherman doesn&#8217;t want individual patrons to have to worry about carrying their own Kno-Naps around. She wants bars and restaurants to use them as the industry standard, so that customers have to opt out if they don&#8217;t want to use them. She also hopes to partner with universities to make Kno-Naps available to students, too, like putting them out wherever they&#8217;ve already done so with condoms.
The company will launch a Kickstarter over the summer, Sherman predicts, and hopes to get the first wave of Kno-Naps on the market a year after that.

One in 13 college students reports getting drugged, and most suffer as a result. Kno-Nap could make that stop.

That cocktail napkin? It could tell you if someone laced your drink.

CEO and founder Danya Sherman wants to give everyone access to Kno-Naps, which can help people determine if someone tried to drug them.

That Cocktail Napkin? It Could Tell You If Someone Laced Your Drink.

The more you kno.

4/18/18 7:20 PM ET: This post has been updated to include a statement from a Tesla spokesperson. 
Well, people, it&#8217;s happening: California&#8217;s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) is officially investigating Tesla, according to a statement.
A brief summary of what got us here: On Monday, investigative outlet Reveal <a href="https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/">published a story</a> with some pretty horrific depictions of workplace injuries happening at Tesla&#8217;s factory in Fremont, California that the company had failed to report to the proper authorities. Tesla refuted the claims in <a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/not-so-revealing-story">a blog post</a>, in which the company called the story “an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla.” And now, Cal/OSHA is getting involved to actually see what&#8217;s going down.
While Cal/OSHA&#8217;s statement doesn&#8217;t specifically name the Reveal story, or where the &#8220;reports of workplace hazards and allegations of employers’ underreporting recordable work-related injuries and illnesses&#8221; came from, it&#8217;s pretty easy to speculate that that&#8217;s what prompted the investigation.
Here&#8217;s Cal/OSHA&#8217;s full statement, emailed to Futurism by a spokesperson:
<blockquote>Cal/OSHA takes seriously reports of workplace hazards and allegations of employers’ underreporting recordable work-related injuries and illnesses on the Log 300. Cal/OSHA currently has an open inspection at Tesla. While we do not disclose details of open inspections, Cal/OSHA’s inspections typically include a review of the employer’s Log 300, as well as a review to ensure that serious injuries are reported directly to Cal/OSHA within eight hours as required by law. Cal/OSHA’s regulations define a serious injury or illness as one that requires employee hospitalization for more than 24 hours for other than medical observation, or in which a part of the body is lost or permanent disfigurement occurs.</blockquote>
This isn&#8217;t Cal/OSHA&#8217;s first investigation into Tesla&#8217;s working conditions. A search of the federal OSHA database reveals <a href="https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.search?p_logger=1&amp;establishment=tesla&amp;State=CA&amp;officetype=state&amp;Office=all&amp;p_case=all&amp;p_violations_exist=all&amp;startmonth=04&amp;startday=18&amp;startyear=2013&amp;endmonth=04&amp;endday=18&amp;endyear=2018">20 such investigations</a> over the past five years.
In a typical investigation, Cal/OSHA representatives will go to the site itself, interview employees and supervisors, and review the required safety records (including the Log 300, mentioned in the statement), the Cal/OSHA spokesperson tells Futurism. They&#8217;ll be checking to make sure the company has all the required safety plans, training for employees and employers, has completed all regular inspections, and has posted summaries of any injuries over the past three months for employees to see. And investigators will also make sure that anything investigated in the past isn&#8217;t violating codes again.
If Tesla is found to be in violation, the Cal/OSHA spokesperson confirms, the company <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-worker-injuries-break-law/">would be fined</a>. If it&#8217;s something as simple of not completing the paperwork they should have, the maximum fine is $12,726. A &#8220;serious violation&#8221; would run them up to $25,000. And a willful violation, in which employers knew about an issue and didn&#8217;t correct it, would cause the company to be fined $127,254.
The Cal/OSHA spokesperson was unable to comment on whether Tesla is cooperating with the investigation, or if it&#8217;s notable in comparison to the previous 20. 
A Tesla spokesperson responded to Futurism&#8217;s request for comment, writing via email:
<blockquote>The injury rate at our Fremont factory is half what it was in the final years of the UAW plant operated by GM/Toyota immediately before us, and we care deeply about the safety and well-being of our people and strive to do better every day. Cal-OSHA is required to investigate any claims that are made, regardless of whether they have merit or are baseless (as we believe these are), and we always provide our full cooperation. Last year, a Cal-OSHA investigation into our injury reporting and record-keeping was closed without any violations found and without any further action taken. In fact, unlike other automakers who in the past have been cited by OSHA for record-keeping violations, we have never in the entire history of our company received a violation for inaccurate or incomplete injury record-keeping.</blockquote>

It's been two days since reports of hazardous working conditions were made public. Also two days since Tesla vehemently denied those reports.

California is investigating Tesla for workplace safety

Days after reports of possible dangerous working conditions, Tesla is now under investigation by California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

California Is Investigating Tesla For Workplace Safety

This will be the company's 21st investigation in the past five years. 

Oh boy, here we are again. Tesla is in the news, and not for happy fun reasons – like being the first sports car to become <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy83wx/elon-musk-bacteria-contamination-spacex-tesla-panspermia">an interplanetary biohazard</a>.
Here&#8217;s a short list of things that are probably keeping Elon Musk up at night:
<ul>
<li>Tesla had to (yet again) stop production on its Model 3. This is the opposite of the original goal to increase the number of cars produced per week to 5,000 (it was just over 2,000 in the last week of March, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/business/tesla-model-3-production.html">New York Times reports</a>).</li>
<li>Musk told CBS Good Morning that this stall was <a href="https://futurism.com/musk-automation-bad-idea/">because of &#8220;excessive automation.&#8221;</a> &#8220;Humans are underrated,&#8221; he confirmed on Twitter. (Luckily for Musk, the company&#8217;s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-temporarily-shuts-down-model-3-assembly-line-2018-4">stock hasn&#8217;t fallen</a> this time, as it has with previous delays).</li>
<li>A <a href="https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/">recent story</a> published by investigative outlet Reveal uncovered numerous employee injuries on the factory floor — workers were reportedly “sliced by machinery, crushed by forklifts, burned in electrical explosions, and sprayed with molten metal&#8221; — that the company failed to report to the proper authorities.</li>
<li>Some of these injuries might have happened specifically because <a href="http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/04/tesla-workers-getting-hurt-because-elon-musk-hates-yellow.html">Musk reportedly doesn&#8217;t like the color yellow</a> – the color used in most warning signs.</li>
<li>Tesla went into damage-control mode and put out <a href="https://www.tesla.com/blog/not-so-revealing-story">a press release</a> (title: &#8220;A Not So Revealing Story&#8221; — good one, guys) refuting the claims by calling Reveal&#8216;s story &#8220;an ideologically motivated attack by an extremist organization working directly with union supporters to create a calculated disinformation campaign against Tesla.&#8221; Wow, that escalated quickly. And now the company&#8217;s <a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-workers-safety-rebuttal-reveal/">getting flack for that</a>, too.</li>
<li>Given everything else going on, how in the hell is Musk supposed to make enough cars to<a href="https://qz.com/1254245/china-just-rolled-out-the-welcome-mat-for-tesla/"> feed the need in China</a>?</li>
</ul>
Most of these issues will probably pass — after all, Musk has somehow gotten this far and still managed to get a bit of restful shut-eye. But that second one – the one about the gruesome workplace injuries – should maybe worry him a bit more than the others. The reason has a little something to do with the law.
As the Reveal story states:
<blockquote>But Logan’s inhalation injury, as it was diagnosed, never made it onto the official injury logs that state and federal law requires companies to keep. Neither did reports from other factory workers of sprains, strains and repetitive stress injuries from piecing together Tesla’s sleek cars.</blockquote>
And, later:
<blockquote>By law, if something at work contributed to an injury – even if work wasn’t the only cause – the injury <a href="https://www.dir.ca.gov/t8/14300_5.html">must be counted</a>.</blockquote>
If the story is correct, Tesla may have systematically underreported the number of workplace injuries, or avoided reporting them altogether by characterizing them as medical issues that have nothing to do with the job.
For the other California companies that have been penalized for failing to report workplace injuries, the consequence has <a href="http://www.stsosha.com/osha-news/unethical-employers-hiding-workplace-injury-records-avoid-osha-fines/">usually been a fine of tens of thousands dollars</a> (in one 2004 case, electric utility Southern California Edison was <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/stories/2004/10/18/daily48.html">forced to return $35 million</a>, but that seems to be an anomaly).
But underreporting workplace injuries<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/us/17osha.html"> seems to be just what American companies do</a> these days. It&#8217;s not always on purpose either, though the incentives not to do so are obvious. So most companies don&#8217;t have any repercussions for underreporting.
<a href="http://home.sandiego.edu/~lobel/">Orly Lobel</a>, a specialist in labor law and a professor at the University of San Diego, told Futurism via email:
<blockquote>I don’t really know the facts other than the two opposing accounts by the journal [Reveal] and Tesla – California law does require reporting of injuries and a violation may result in a fine, and possible Cal/OSHA investigation and further requirements to update safety practices/processes.
All of this doesn’t sound super unique though. I think these kind of violations of non-reporting are, unfortunately, quite common.</blockquote>
Since Tesla&#8217;s reported violations are so sensational and so damn public, it wouldn&#8217;t be surprising if there were an investigation. Maybe the prospect– paying a substantial fine <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musks-april-fools-prank-backfired/">when your company is already dangerously close to bankruptcy</a> – might give Musk some fitful slumber, after all.

That should probably be keeping Musk up at night.

Tesla may have broken the law in not reporting worker injuries

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Elon Musk has a lot to worry about right now. The embattled Tesla factory has stalled production. But he might have a much bigger problem on his hands.

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