Elon Musk's Statements Could Be 'Deepfakes'; Tesla CEO Likely To Testify In Court In Autopilot Crash Case

The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial on July 31; the plaintiff's attorneys wanted to bring Musk to court to testify on the billionaire's recorded statements about Autopilot.

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Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk is likely to testify in a lawsuit in the US that blamed Autopilot for a fatal crash in 2018. The family of Walter Huang, an Apple engineer who died after his Tesla Model X with Autopilot engaged crashed after hitting a highway barrier, had sued Tesla in California Superior Court, County of Santa Clara. Now, a California judge has ordered Musk to "be interviewed under oath" in the case, reports TechCrunch.

The plaintiff's attorneys wanted to bring Musk to court to testify on the billionaire's recorded statements about Autopilot. Musk previously tweeted a 2016 promotional video for Autopilot as evidence that Tesla "drives itself" with "no human input at all."

Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software at Tesla, later testified that the video was staged using 3D mapping on a predetermined route. Tesla`s lawyers have opposed the request in court filings. They said Musk can't recall the details of statements plaintiffs want to question him on and that he is often the subject of "deepfake" videos, according to Reuters. The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial on July 31.

Last week, jurors in an Autopilot-related 2019 crash in the US gave the verdict in favour of the electric car company. The jury in the California state court awarded plaintiff Justine Hsu, who sued Tesla in 2020, no damages, reported The Verge.

The jurors found that the Tesla Autopilot software "wasn't at fault in a crash where the car turned into a median on a city street while Autopilot was engaged."