He made the statement it made no financial sense to buy any other car than a Tesla because of the certainty of robo taxi functionality arriving in 2020. He sold people on the promise that their car would be revenue generating in 2020.

Everyone who bought a Tesla with FSD since 2019 should sue Elon for lost revenues from failing to deliver robo taxi functionality over three years late (and counting!) than originally stated.

When you sell a capability you are making a commitment. The fact that you deluded yourself about it does not get you off the hook. You are still responsible for your claims. Or should be.

I don't think Musk deserves the benefit of the doubt. His history of just lying about this sort of stuff (outside of Tesla-related claims) is too long and rich for that.

I'm sure there is a negligence or recklessness standard that an overzealous prosecutor can apply here. Being willfully stupid about your own company and the products they produce in order to repeatedly get away with delusional over-promising could be construed that way, as could creating a culture that suppresses internal doubt about your company's capabilities.