{"id":37033,"date":"2022-11-28T11:16:21","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T16:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=37033"},"modified":"2022-11-28T11:16:21","modified_gmt":"2022-11-28T16:16:21","slug":"tesla-blogs-propagate-fake-news-chip-joint-venture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=37033","title":{"rendered":"Tesla blogs propagate fake news of chip joint venture, but why?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\"Tesla
\n\t<\/figure>\n

Several Tesla blogs are reporting that Tesla created a joint venture to produce computer chips with a company that is clearly fake.<\/p>\n

The reason behind the strange situation is unclear.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Over the last few days, Tesla blogs, including Teslarati<\/a> and Tesmanian<\/a> (with the latter having been promoted recently by CEO Elon Musk on Twitter), have reported that Tesla has \u201cset up a semiconductor joint venture with Swiss\u2019s Annex Semiconductor\u201d in China.<\/p>\n

The report claims that Tesla<\/a>, along with Annex, have invested $150 million to start the new joint venture and produce automotive chips.<\/p>\n

Teslarati called Annex \u201ca formidable partner\u201d for Tesla and \u201camong the global leaders in automotive system-on-chip (SoC), microcontroller (MCU), and processor, image sensor, and power device products.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only problem is that the company is fake.<\/p>\n

It looks like the blogs only copy pasted from a report from Chinese website Ijiwei<\/a> without verifying any of the information. <\/p>\n

I asked a few sources in the semiconductor business, and no one had ever heard of Annex Semiconductor.<\/p>\n

After researching Annex, I couldn\u2019t find anything about the company other than its own website and the new reporting from the Tesla blogs.<\/p>\n

As for the website, it triggered my bullshit meter as it appeared extremely generic. My suspicions were confirmed when all the phone numbers on the contact page didn\u2019t work, and I couldn\u2019t find a single employee linked to the company.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

The links to the company\u2019s social media accounts were also not working, and I couldn\u2019t find an actual social media presence. The address of its headquarters is not real, and all the other supposed offices don\u2019t have any listed addresses.<\/p>\n

The reports from Teslarati and Tesmanian also both mentioned that Annex Semiconductor was bought by Zurich Fund back in June for $5 billion. The publications didn\u2019t bother to verify that, either.<\/p>\n

Zurich Fund also appears to be a completely made-up company. The website<\/a> has the same design as Annex\u2019s, and it is also full of vague and generic information. Its \u201cour people\u201d page actually profiles two executives, but they are both made up with stock images for their profiles:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

I couldn\u2019t find anyone matching those names and profiles. Like Annex, the only reference that I could find about the Zurich Fund is a press release about it buying Annex in June. No other information about the company is available nor does anyone claim to be working for the company.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not normal for a company that is able to buy a chip maker for $5 billion.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, a look at Annex\u2019s website suggests that it was created in China, which is strange for a company that is supposed to be Swiss. In conclusion, there\u2019s nothing pointing to Annex being a real company, and even less so pointing to it being a $5 billion leader in automotive chip-making partnering with Tesla.<\/p>\n

Electrek\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a good reminder to be careful about what you read online. Even publications that claim to be experts in a subject, such as Tesla, often post things without ever bothering to look into the sources.<\/p>\n

But it raises the question: Why the subterfuge? So far, I couldn\u2019t find a clear reason for making up the fake companies and the partnership with Tesla beyond tricking lazy reporters. If there\u2019s a company whose stock it would have helped, I couldn\u2019t find it, but that\u2019s a possibility. If you have any idea, let us know in the comments section below or reach out to me at fred@electrek.co.<\/p>\n

\n

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.<\/em> More.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several Tesla blogs are reporting that Tesla created a joint venture to produce computer chips with a company that is clearly fake. The reason behind the strange situation is unclear. Over the last few days, Tesla blogs, including Teslarati and Tesmanian (with the latter having been promoted recently by CEO Elon Musk on Twitter), have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}