Tesla has embraced an aggressive legal strategy in China to stifle its critics — suing its own customers.
That’s left some Tesla owners desperate. Zhang Yazhou protested publicly that her Model 3's brakes had failed and caused an accident in 2021 that sent her parents to the hospital. Tesla said that wasn’t true and sued her for defamation. A Chinese court ordered Zhang to pay the $1.1-trillion company more than $23,000 in damages and publicly apologize for her criticism.
