#LawAndOrder

Given that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter account now has third-party oversight, it’s unlikely we’ll see angry missives about the Fun-Busting Interrogators this weekend. However, that won’t stop the FBI from probing Musk’s past production promises for the Model 3 sedan.

As part of an ongoing Department of Justice investigation that kicked off after Musk’s fateful August 7th “funding secured” tweet, the FBI wants to know if the automaker misled investors via production promises that didn’t pan out.

Marijuana seems to be a reoccurring theme this month. Canada, which legalized recreational use of the drug on Wednesday, has already had an opportunity to remind its citizenry that there are still some ground rules that must be followed. Literally one hour after weed received the green light, Winnipeg police issued a citation for consumption of cannabis inside a motor vehicle.

Last week, we described the difficulties Canuck police will face when attempting to prove someone is driving under the influence of the herb. However, the country’s updated rules mean cops don’t actually need to prove you were driving at all. Simply having it in the cabin is enough to get you slapped with a minor infraction.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk will soon be gone as company’s chairman, but a replacement — someone who’ll need to occupy the position for three years — has yet to be named.

The hourglass was flipped after U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan approved a settlement between Musk and his company and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday. Musk has 45 days to step down as chairman. Double the amount of time is allowed for the automaker to name two independent board members, though Musk and Co. only have two weeks to pony up their $20 million fines.

The settlement, which stayed on track despite Musk’s attempt to screw the whole thing up, contains a punishment perhaps far greater than those listed already: Musk now requires a Twitter parent.

If reading about young brainiacs with God complexes and too much money living in Silicon Valley makes you ill, best not read this while eating. For everyone else, you’re encouraged to take a peek at this report in The New Yorker.

It’s a Marianas Trench-deep dive into what occured in the years leading up to last year’s filing of an intellectual property theft lawsuit by Google’s Waymo autonomous vehicle unit against ride-hailing company (and rival self-driving vehicle developer) Uber. The alleged theft is intriguing, but the behind-the-scenes accounts of what went on at Google’s pre-Waymo self-driving car effort is the stuff of HBO and Netflix. There’s crashes and mayhem, egos, genius, and money, money, money.

Absolutely no sex, of course.

The scandal has raged for over three years, and Audi clearly wants to be done with it. The company said in a regulatory filing Tuesday that, like Volkswagen, it will not fight a fine handed down by German prosecutors over the selling of rigged diesel engines in that country.

Earlier this month, Audi said auf wiedersehen to jailed CEO Rupert Stadler, who’s accused of fraud in relation to the diesel emissions affair. Now, the automaker will hand over a towering pile of euros to finally close this messy chapter in its history.

The large country just north of Cleveland will make it legal to buy and consume marijuana on October 17th, no doubt turning the air in this author’s neighborhood even skunkier that it already is.

With the lifting of prohibitive laws comes new driving-related legislation designed to crack down on stoned drivers and placate a somewhat nervous public. Problem is, law enforcement’s tool chest remains pretty bare. The one government-approved method available to cops to check if a driver is stoned — a saliva test — might not work if it’s cold out. Whoops.

Don’t worry, though — there’s always a blood test. It’s the only way to ensure the not-always-accurate saliva test returned a true reading, but there’s a big problem with that, too: time.

Modern society seems to be divided into two camps — those who say, “If you aren’t doing anything wrong, why would you have a problem with [expanded government power A]?” and those who drop their copy of Reason in horror as each new measure designed to make society “safer” erodes their perceived freedom just a little bit more.

The former group will cheer this news, though the latter camp will surely decry our steeper descent into a Surveillance State. Those annoying roadside signs that flash your current speed might soon record your plate number.

Rupert Stadler, now former CEO of Audi, saw his contract with Volkswagen Group terminated on Tuesday, thus allowing the automaker to distance itself from a PR-squashing reminder of its disastrous diesel emissions fiasco.

Serving as Audi AG’s CEO since 2010, Stadler’s June arrest on suspicion of interference in an ongoing German fraud investigation pushed an interim CEO into the top chair. It was the highest profile arrest thus far in the diesel emissions scandal. As investigators continue probing his potential involvement in the diesel fraud, the jailed Stadler also gives up his seat on VW’s management board, effective immediately.

Saying the Tesla Model 3’s interior is polarizing would be a massive understatement. While some absolutely love the minimalist design and singular, tablet-like interface, others criticize it for being too barren to be considered interesting. The vehicle also saw some blowback over its centrally mounted 15-inch display, which, for several reasons, can serve as a potential distraction to drivers.

In fact, it’s so big that one Washington resident found himself pulled over by a motorcycle cop for having what was presumed to be a computer attached to his dashboard.

Yesterday’s end-of-day fraud lawsuit filed against Tesla CEO Elon Musk by the Securities and Exchange Commission needn’t have happened, CNBC reports. The CEO and founder turned down a settlement deal that would have seen him pay a “nominal” fine and remove himself as chairman, sources claim. Instead, Musk did what he does best. He went his own way, greatly increasing risk both to himself and his company.

Still, Tesla’s board stands by its man, releasing a statement late Thursday to this effect. According to Bob Lutz, outspoken industry titan, the board should have told Musk to hit the bricks.

Documents filed in a Manhattan federal court Thursday reveal the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Tesla CEO Elon Musk for fraud. The SEC opened an investigation into Musk after the CEO fatefully tweeted his intent to take the company private. “Funding secured,” Musk wrote in the August 7th tweet.

The go-private plan quickly fell apart. In the lawsuit, published by Bloomberg, the SEC accuses Musk of fabricating the claim made to 22 million social media followers, many of them investors.

Four years after launching a massive, incredibly delayed recall aimed at preventing further deaths from its faulty ignition switches, General Motors freed itself from a criminal case launched in the scandal’s wake.

Earlier this week, federal prosecutors in New York wrote U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, compelling him to dismiss the case. Nathan approved the request, lifting GM free of the caudron. The rationale for dismissing the two criminal charges — concealing evidence from federal officials and wire fraud — comes down to good behavior on GM’s part, something that certainly doesn’t describe its past actions.

What a week it’s shaping up to be for Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Interestingly, if this latest report proves true, we can pin the blame for all of Musk’s misfortune over the past 24 hours on the presence of social media, and his tendency to overuse it.

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Justice Department has opened a fraud investigation into Musk’s infamous “funding secured” tweet — the online message that kicked off a strange journey that ultimately went nowhere.

A Silicon Valley resident had a big day yesterday. After finally revealing the real, live, human being he plans to stuff on top of a rocket for a journey around the moon, this same resident also received notice of a lawsuit filed against him. Big, big day.

What’s amazing about Vernon Unsworth’s libel suit is how completely avoidable it was. However, as we’re dealing with the mind of Tesla CEO Elon Musk here, the suit — which accuses Musk of libel, assault, and slander — seemed from the outset to be unavoidable. This is a man who goaded the litigant to sue even after apologizing for calling a man he’s never met a “pedo” on Twitter. Musk then forgot all about the apologies and doubled down on the unsubstantiated claim, even as Unsworth secured legal representation.

And why? Unsworth helped rescue a Thai soccer team from a flooded cave but had the nerve to criticise Musk’s homemade submarine, which rescuers never employed in the cave extraction. It’s enough to make one believe that only a certain type of personality makes it big in Silicon Valley.

A decade-old document signed by Indian automaker Mahindra & Mahindra and Chrysler Group LLC will be at the center of an investigation by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Announced Tuesday and reported by Reuters, the feds will look into the patent dispute that erupted when Mahindra began importing the very Jeep-like Roxor all-terrain vehicle into the United States. FCA claimed the Roxor looks too much like the classic Jeep CJ line, predecessor to the Wrangler, and filed an intellectual property complaint to the ITC. Nuh uh — we had a deal, Mahindra responded.