The lawsuit is full of “corporate puffery” arguments by Tesla’s lawyers: Defendants argue that the Timeline Statements that FSDC technology “appear[ed] to be on track,” would be available “aspirationally by the end of the year,” and Tesla was “aiming to release [it] this year,” [..] were nonactionable statements of corporate puffery and optimism. […] Plaintiffs contend that the statements provided a “concrete description” of the state of Tesla’s technology in a way that misled investors. […]. These statements about Tesla’s aims and aspirations to develop Tesla’s technology by the end of the year and Musk’s confidence in the development timeline are too vague for an investor to rely on them. […] Thus, in addition to being protected under the PSLRA safe harbor, Statements (10, 11, and 18) are nonactionable puffery. In a mind-numbing statement, Musk’s lawyers argue that his claims about Tesla Autopilot safety were “vague statements of corporate optimism are not objectively verifiable”: Defendants also assert that several Safety Statements are corporate puffery. For example, statements that safety is “paramount” (FAC ¶ 325), Tesla cars are “absurdly safe” (id.), autopilot is “superhuman” (FAC ¶ 337), and “we want to get to as close to perfection as possible” (FAC¶363). Mot. at 19. Plaintiffs respond that “super” in “superhuman” is not puffery because it represents that ADT is safer than human and “absurdly safe” conveys greater-than-human safety. Opp. at 12. However, these vague statements of corporate optimism are not objectively verifiable. The lawyers even argued, successfully, that “no reasonable investor would rely” on many of the alleged misleading statements because they are “mere puffing”: Defendants next argue that several Timeline and Safety Statements, (Statements 7, 9-11, 13, 16, 18, and 26 FAC 325, 329, 331, 333, 337, 343, 347, 363), are nonactionable statements of corporate puffery and optimism. Mot. at 15, 19. In the Ninth Circuit, “vague, generalized assertions of corporate optimism or statements of ‘mere puffing’ are not actionable material misrepresentations under federal securities laws” because no reasonable investor would rely on such statements. Therefore, yes, Tesla won a dismissal, but at the cost of a judge agreeing with Musk’s lawyers that his statement about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving effort was “mere puffing.” Electrek’s Take