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by kappattack 1560 days ago
Sounds like he broke some kinda of NDA which he probably signed himself, resulting in removal from the beta program and being let go from his position. That kinda sucks, because it seems his content did have a positive spin to it and it doesnt seem like he meant to hurt anyone or the company.

I don't see whats wrong with the action taken though. He probably agreed to these terms and then he broke them. Whether he was aware that he was going against his own agreement or not is out of the question. I don't like Tesla as a company or a car manufacturer (nothing personal, I just wouldnt buy their cars) and I agree that this response was probably to be expected by anyone who was aware of the terms surrounding their employment and the internal beta access that position grants them.

5 comments

I have to share the road with people in the FSD beta program, and I never signed an NDA for the FSD beta program, so I think I should be able to hear people recount their driving experiences on public roads with me.
There is no NDA required for FSD beta access. Certainly I never signed one. What would you like to know?
There used to be one. https://insideevs.com/news/539939/tesla-drops-ndas-latest-fs...

I don't have any questions at the moment - I'm still absorbing information from AI Addict: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByKE6RZjYes

He probably signed an NDA for it (by joining it before 10.2), and I'm grateful that he isn't following the likely-unenforceable NDA.

As a pedestrian, will this beta release attempt to kill me? That's been on my mind.
My guess is you're right. Many companies have terms in their employee agreements limiting what employees can say/post about the company publicly, including via social media, YouTube, and so on. Many are extremely restrictive and enforced regularly. For example, good luck finding a non-throwaway HN poster self-identifying as an Apple employee. I don't talk about my employer here or even contribute to threads about it. These agreements are very common, check your employment agreement--you might have agreed to one, too.
They are running that beta program on public streets, where everybody's safety is involved.

An NDA is not appropriate as an argument here.

The driver surely has access to nonpublic information, even if some of what they do is publicly observable.

Not having an NDA would be inappropriate for any beta tester of a proprietary product, regardless of the location in which their testing primarily occurs.

For context, NDA's are extremely common - in my experience, you can scarcely have a coffee chat with a tech employee at their office without signing one.

>I don't see whats wrong with the action taken though. He probably agreed to these terms and then he broke them.

Today I learned that some people in this industry are fine with NDAs and onerous terms of services for "cool" companies.

Yes that's precisely what seems to have happened. A lot of people here have irrational hatred toward Musk and/or Tesla though.
Perhaps. I also see the reverse: the man is practically worshipped as a god for nerds.
And on one hand, his shit quality far right memes are pushing some people off his bandwagon, but I fear for the rest.