[Followup] SEC asks federal judge to hold Elon Musk in contempt

[EarthWormJM2]

11 hours ago, Tech Enthusiast said:

America really feels more and more strange, the longer I follow US news the less I believe there is hope left

Well there's the problem, don't follow mainstream US news. Most of it is extremely bias and almost half of all local news is owned and operated by one company forcing a lot of the stories you see to air. Not an accurate view on how this country is, it's more like what the media wants this country to be. Unfortunately to get unbiased, accurate news in this country, you have to find your own reputable news outlet, most likely online or outside of this country.

[Yoinkerman]

What a time to be alive indeed

[porina]

The SEC has wide powers to ensure a level playing field in the financial markets. I'm a British citizen, working in the UK, in not even a management role for a US HQ company, and I'm bound by SEC regulations. Even at my level, in short I'm not allowed to make public comments how I think the company will perform, good or bad, or give any information which could influence the perception of the company's forward looking performance. I certainly wouldn't rely on disclaiming it as personal opinion. If you're the CEO, that distinction between personal and work is even thinner. This isn't just a minor mistake by Musk, it's either negligence, or he does know what he's doing and doesn't care.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

this is what we call the pinnacle of first world problems. 

[Tech Enthusiast]

The US has a strong emphasis on "making a case" when it comes to laws.

Laws by definition are very open and broad in the US. So there is plenty of room for interpretation, "to be able to make a case".

 

Germany for example does not have that at all. There is law. Period. We barely have any room to bend the law at all. You look into the law books, find the section that fits your case and the ruling is right there. No case to be made.

 

Why do I mention this?

Because Elon Musk could tweet about having a MAJOR cold and feels like dying.

People would start "making a case" that this is tempering with the stock market, as people could fear he would really be dying and Tesla stock would drop like a rock without him.

 

It is crazy easy "to make a case" under US law. Whatever he tweets, there is almost always a way to make a case on why it could affect someone, just to be able to sue for another few millions.

 

"I had a car accident, feeling ok, thanks for the wishes!" - OMG. Elon Musk crashed, likely in a tesla. He is not allowed to tweet THAT!

"We are pushing out a new Software Update somewhere next month. It will update the security of your auto pilot 2 fold!" - OMG, he is claiming stuff to happen. He is not allowed to tweet THAT!

 

Think I am exaggerating? 

Get yourself a beer and read the comments under his tweets once in a while. Basically the moment he sends a tweet, there is the crowd of people trying to "make a case".

I was really sad to hear, that he would not pull Tesla from the stock market. So many stuff and regulations that push Tesla back. I am sure he could be making even more amazing stuff, if it was not for this silly Stock Market and all the silly people trying to get rich by suing other people for words.

[VanayadGaming]

14 hours ago, kuhnerdm said:

snip

Please if possible add to the main post, such as not to spread misinformation, that the information he tweeted about WAS DISCLOSED in the Q4 shareholder letter.

Letter: 

Spoiler

 

Tweet:
 

Spoiler

 

 

Also consider the fact that his initial tweet didn't move tesla stock up or down. The SEC filing did. 

[CarlBar]

3 hours ago, Ithanul said:

Thing is, he did not keep to the agreement with SEC about his tweets.  The settlement was that all tweets going forward are to be reviewed that state about Tesla business matters and to not state false claims about said business.  He broke the agreement; hence, the SEC is going after him again.

 

 

 

The point thats trying to be made is that no one should be taking anything said on twitter too seriously.

 

I'm currently eating food and need a good long sleep so i'll refrain from going into detail but i get both sides PoV and i agree with elements of both.

[Ithanul]

22 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

The point thats trying to be made is that no one should be taking anything said on twitter too seriously.

 

I'm currently eating food and need a good long sleep so i'll refrain from going into detail but i get both sides PoV and i agree with elements of both.

Understandable, but the main focus is he still broke an actual agreement with SEC. 

Now, I don't completely agree with how SEC went about the whole orginial settlement about the twitter usage, but Elon and Telsa came to an agreement with SEC which they broke: 

Quote

 As part of that settlement, Tesla (which also paid a $20 million settlement for Musk’s over-share) agreed to set up a “pre-approval” process for all of its senior executives’ communications with shareholders, including tweets.

Quote

The settlement instructs Tesla to “implement mandatory procedures and controls to oversee all of Elon Musk’s communications regarding the Company made in any format.” Including—you guessed it—Twitter.

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musks-sec-settlement-could-have-gone-so-much-worse/

As part of that settlement, the SEC does have some ground to go after him about that tweet.

 

He also not completely out of hot water.  The Department of Justice is still looking at the possiblity of charging him with criminal fraud for that former tweet he did last year.  Along with facing class action lawsuits too.

[k.m.p]

Damn, Elon just loves to get into trouble, first the cave rescue fiasco, then the taking tesla private, smoking weed on tv and now another tweet that could get him into legal trouble, Im sure he already owns the record on most money lost due to a tweet, but its not surprising that he's still looking to top it.

 

I love what tesla is doing in the electric car market and how space x has rejuvenated the space industry, Elon musk may be the most influential person to be remembered this generation but he needs to stay out of trouble.

[CarlBar]

1 hour ago, Ithanul said:

Understandable, but the main focus is he still broke an actual agreement with SEC. 

Now, I don't completely agree with how SEC went about the whole orginial settlement about the twitter usage, but Elon and Telsa came to an agreement with SEC which they broke: 

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musks-sec-settlement-could-have-gone-so-much-worse/

As part of that settlement, the SEC does have some ground to go after him about that tweet.

 

He also not completely out of hot water.  The Department of Justice is still looking at the possiblity of charging him with criminal fraud for that former tweet he did last year.  Along with facing class action lawsuits too.

 

Not going to go into too many details, (still need the sleep but trying to stay up as late as possibble to avoid waking up middle of the night), but i'd point out we don't know what the source of the mistake was. The agreement doesn't say he can't make a mistake, merely that things have to be proofread, for all we know it was proofread and the person doing that messed up as well.

[Ithanul]

1 minute ago, CarlBar said:

 

Not going to go into too many details, (still need the sleep but trying to stay up as late as possibble to avoid waking up middle of the night), but i'd point out we don't know what the source of the mistake was. The agreement doesn't say he can't make a mistake, merely that things have to be proofread, for all we know it was proofread and the person doing that messed up as well.

Agree, that part is still not clear.  The bit of reading I have come across has the SEC claiming proofreading was not done.  But that is their statement, currently Telsa and Elon have until March 11th to write a respone for the judge to review.

[CarlBar]

1 minute ago, Ithanul said:

Agree, that part is still not clear.  The bit of reading I have come across has the SEC claiming proofreading was not done.  But that is their statement, currently Telsa and Elon have until March 11th to write a respone for the judge to review.

 

Thing is how would the SEC know weather it was done or not? presumably they'd have to get some kind of court order for documents and examine them, and unless i misunderstand the US legal system that should have produced a paper trail that reports would have mentioned.

[Ithanul]

2 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Thing is how would the SEC know weather it was done or not?

I'm not sure of that part.  Only saw one article stating such with not much detail given about how they would know.

 

Probably for the best is for folks to wait for the official reponse from Telsa and Elon and the judge's decision upon the matter.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Downside of being a tweeting CEO: you can get in a lot of legal trouble.

 

Upside of being a tweeting CEO: ...

...

...

............@

...

... oh, yes, you can become POTUS  

 

5 hours ago, EarthWormJM2 said:

Most of it is extremely bias

 

Biased. "Extremely biased". Bias is a noun, biased is the adjective.

(sorry, I've seen it too often lately )

[Dylanc1500]

10 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Biased. "Extremely biased". Bias is a noun, biased is the adjective.

(sorry, I've seen it too often lately )

Could have also been "extreme bias". Fun, English is.

[Arika]

I'm starting to wonder if this case was pushed by the big oil companies in the US. 

 

It seems like the US government really hates Telsa... Despite the fact that they are making clean cars to help the environment and need to have something to work with when we run out of natural resources. But because they don't use petrol the oil companies are starting to sweat, so they are pushing real hard to slow down or stop Telsa. 

 

/takes off tinfoil hat

[S w a t s o n]

Looking at elon's latest tweets, his ass is partially covered by his statements during the last earning call saying 350k to 500k units, additionally the market didnt move due to his tweet but the market has moved due to the SEC doing this.

[EarthWormJM2]

1 hour ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Biased. "Extremely biased". Bias is a noun, biased is the adjective.

(sorry, I've seen it too often lately )

 

1 hour ago, Dylanc1500 said:

Could have also been "extreme bias". Fun, English is.

...and this is why I work with computers, not words... lol, my bias wasn't biased enough...

[AwesomeRig]

21 hours ago, Orangeator said:

Damn... Elon isn't doing too hot right now. He needs to lay low for a bit here haha.

he will be fine. The SEC  is just mad because they can't control every rich person, and are trying to flex on Elon because he claps back when they try to control him. 

[Tech_Dreamer]

Elon should just pay the fine & post a tweet a gif off of some rapper throwing cash . see where it goes from there.

[kuhnertdm]

7 hours ago, VanayadGaming said:

Please if possible add to the main post, such as not to spread misinformation, that the information he tweeted about WAS DISCLOSED in the Q4 shareholder letter.

Letter: 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Tweet:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Also consider the fact that his initial tweet didn't move tesla stock up or down. The SEC filing did. 

The SEC preemptively addresses this argument in their filing, page 12:

 

Quote

According to Tesla’s Policy, any edits to a pre-approved Written Communication or even releasing a verbatim pre-approved Written Communication more than two days after it has been pre-approved requires that the pre-approval be reconfirmed. Even if the exact substance of the 7:15 tweet had been pre-approved 20 days before, Musk cannot credibly claim that he thought he was not required to obtain pre-approval again under the plain terms of the Policy. In fact, the written communication in the 7:15 tweet was not pre-approved 20 days earlier or at any time. Musk’s claim that he thought he was simply restating information from the January 30 communications is not credible.

 

Also, whether or not the initial tweet moved Tesla stock is irrelevant to the news story; the story is that he broke his settlement agreement.

 

5 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

Thing is how would the SEC know weather it was done or not? presumably they'd have to get some kind of court order for documents and examine them, and unless i misunderstand the US legal system that should have produced a paper trail that reports would have mentioned.

 

The SEC has confirmation from Tesla that this was the case, so whether or not it was actually done is not in question (quote from the original article):

 

Quote

The next day, the SEC asked the company whether the tweets had been reviewed before being published, a requirement of a settlement agreement Musk reached late last year. The first tweet had not been preapproved, the company said. Instead, Tesla’s attorneys saw the tweet after it was published and then contacted Musk to draft a corrective second tweet, the SEC said in a motion filed in the U.S. Southern District Court.

 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

TBH a couple of months in jail would probably be a good thing for him.  He really needs to take a break, dude is overworked as hell.

[kasugatei]

I, for sure, know that at least one huge global financial organization has an AI which goes through Twitter to find information before anyone else so it can find the next "hot" stocks to buy.

Tweet like that will for sure make those AIs set a flag to buy stocks which will lead to the stock market price change. No wonder SEC is not looking positively on this.

[Tech Enthusiast]

1 hour ago, Niksa said:

I, for sure, know that at least one huge global financial organization has an AI which goes through Twitter to find information before anyone else so it can find the next "hot" stocks to buy.

Tweet like that will for sure make those AIs set a flag to buy stocks which will lead to the stock market price change. No wonder SEC is not looking positively on this.

Haha!

So, we need to sue people, so they don't talk in a way the AI can't handle, so the people building the AI can get rich, without actually having to make the AI work correctly?

Amazing logic right there!

 

With that kinda laws, I have plenty of ideas how to get rich by pointing fingers at people. Just make it easier for trolls, that is what the world needs!