mmarshall

We've had several Car Chat threads on the topic of Tesla and Elon Musk lately, so I'm not sure if this justifies a new thread or not. But, here's the latest act in the Elon-Musk-vs.-the Government circus....a request by the SEC to hold Musk in contempt for a tweet that they say violates the settlement-order not to tweet things that could potentially affect the Tesla market. I won't take a position on it myself as IMO there seems to be truth on both sides, but you all can decide if the contempt-citation is justified or not.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...ttlement-deal/

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday asked a federal judge to hold Tesla CEO Elon Musk in contempt for violating the terms of a recent settlement agreement that required preapproval of any potentially market-moving tweets about the car company.

On Feb. 19, Musk tweeted that the company would make around 500,000 cars this year. Four hours later, he tweeted again that he “meant to say” the cars’ weekly production rate would equal up to about 500,000 on an annual basis but that the total car deliveries this year would be closer to around 400,000.

The next day, the SEC asked the company whether the tweets had been reviewed before being published. The first tweet had not been preapproved, the company said. Instead, Tesla’s attorney’s saw the tweet after it was published and then reached out Musk to draft a second, corrective tweet, the SEC said.

“As a result of his failure to comply with the [settlement, Musk] once again published inaccurate and material information about Tesla to his over 24 million Twitter followers,” the SEC said.

A Tesla spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Last September, Musk reached a $20 million settlement with the SEC, which had accused him of lying to investors when he tweeted that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private. As part of the settlement, Tesla agreed to review Musk’s market-moving tweets and public statements before he published them.

But according to the SEC, that didn’t happen. “The provision of the Court’s Final Judgment requiring Musk to obtain pre-approval before publishing written statements containing material information about Tesla is clear and unambiguous,” the SEC said in its court filing.

Stormwind

some people just don't feel the pain until they gets whipped by the cane, i think the sec needs to flex a bit in order to set an example.

jwong77

I doubt an egomaniac like Musk has much humility. It'll take a lot of whipping before he feels anything close to pain.

mmarshall

........then he'll just puff on another joint and won't feel any pain LOL.

situman

Tesla the company will need to take responsibility and get fined as well this time, I presume.

riredale

I guess this is why virtually all big public companies have a press office. Things going out are checked and then checked again. Hard to do with a personality like Trump or Musk who are used to communicating directly.

EDIT: Today (Wednesday) there was an article in the WSJ about the situation. Apparently there was language in the agreement a few months ago that Musk's comments would be vetted by someone before release, but that didn't happen here.

It also doesn't help that Musk recently said in a TV interview that he holds the SEC in very low regard. The WSJ article also said that it's unlikely that Musk will see jail time but entirely possible that the previous agreement will be voided and a new and more-severe batch of penalties will be imposed.

mmarshall

It also begs the question if the court should have ordered Musk to stay quiet in the first place. Just because judges have the power to issue orders doesn't mean that they are always correct in doing so.

jwong77

My guess is that this doesn't end well for Musk. I don't see the SEC letting somebody get away with this because of the precedent it sets for future issues.

mmarshall

Here's the text of the actual pdf document with the SEC complaint, as submitted in court. It is some 23 pages long, so it is probably too long to copy the entire document, but I'll post the link for anyone who wants to read or consult it.

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/compl...pr2018-219.pdf

patgilm

Stormwind

elon tusk just can't get a break as today of march 1st tesla has a payment of $900 million due and the stock is down almost 8% from the news of $35k model 3 and closing down retail shops.
so the loan payment is really $4.4 billion + $900 million boy that is some expensive weed.

mmarshall

Yep.....and you can see what that stuff is doing to his mind and judgement, though we don't know how much (or how often) he actually smokes it.

swajames

mmarshall

As patgilm (correctly) pointed out, that is considered a civil action, not criminal. One does not necessarily go to prison for not being allowed to serve as CEO or on a board. But Musk had better watch out where he decides to light up those joints.....there are states that have not decriminalized weed, and one can still go to prison for it, though not likely on a first-offense.

patgilm