Elon Musk is being sued by the SEC and could be barred from officer positions at all public...

[Greg S]

In brief: Elon Musk and the SEC have not reached a settlement over Musk's tweet about taking Tesla private at $420 per share. A lawsuit is proceeding, although it is still possible that a settlement is reached long before going to trial.

Elon Musk's use of Twitter has gotten him into hot water with the SEC. Following tweets about taking Tesla private at $420 per share, an investigation was launched to determine whether any stock price manipulation was intentional.

The SEC has now filed suit against Musk for fraud and is seeking to remove him from the position of CEO at Tesla and bar him from holding an officer position at any public company. Initially, it seems that even high ranking employees at Tesla were unsure what to make of Musk's tweet. The head of investor relations sent text messages to Musk's chief of staff just 12 minutes after the tweet went out asking if it was actually a real possibility.

In a statement, Musk condemns the SEC saying he is "deeply saddened and disappointed" by their investigations. In filings looking at emails and text messages, Musk is quoted as writing his girlfriend "would find it funny, which admittedly is not a great reason to pick a price."

Unfortunately for Musk, the SEC could do significant damage by affecting investor confidence in a company that has yet to post any significant profits. He has been called "reckless" and been accused of misleading investors for repeatedly missing lofty production goals and hard-to-meet timelines.

It is unclear whether or not Tesla ever did have funding secured when Musk tweeted about taking Tesla private. Tesla's head of investor relations even says, "I actually don't know, but I would assume that given we went full-on public with this, the offer is as firm as it gets." In a blog post made on August 13, Musk explains that the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund has wanted to take Tesla private since early 2017.

Tesla executives met with the Saudi fund stakeholders on July 31 after the fund bought up five percent of Tesla's shares through public markets. Musk indicates that the Saudi fund made it clear that additional investment was intended.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/76672-elon-musk-sued-sec-could-barred-officer-positions.html

 

[fps4ever]

Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

 

[gigantor21]

Sow the wind, read the whirlwind.

He REALLY needs to learn when to keep his mouth shut.

 

[wiyosaya]

Sow the wind, read the whirlwind.

He REALLY needs to learn when to keep his mouth shut.

Too late for that.

It was plain to at least a few commenters here on TS that this was going to happen.

IMO, to ban him from officer positions at all companies is a good thing.

 

[senketsu]

Oops!... I Did It Again (Elon Musk theme)

 

[gigantor21]

Too late for that.

It was plain to at least a few commenters here on TS that this was going to happen.

IMO, to ban him from officer positions at all companies is a good thing.

Its probably for the best at this point.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I don't understand this hatred for Elon Musk personally. Out from the thousands of people just like him. Every time there is an article about anything related to this man, the topic shifts to Elon. Can you imagine how quickly we would forget about this man if congress started tweeting everything internal?

What this man does is no where near as detrimental as some would lead to believe. Sure he might make some stupid decisions. But why should that be any concern of ours. I'm only interested in the products and how useful they may be. We can't remove him or replace him. So this is not some political game, yet we treat it as such.

 

[wiyosaya]

I don't understand this hatred for Elon Musk personally. Out from the thousands of people just like him. Every time there is an article about anything related to this man, the topic shifts to Elon. Can you imagine how quickly we would forget about this man if congress started tweeting everything internal?

What this man does is no where near as detrimental as some would lead to believe. Sure he might make some stupid decisions. But why should that be any concern of ours. I'm only interested in the products and how useful they may be. We can't remove him or replace him. So this is not some political game, yet we treat it as such.

To try to explain it, I don't personally hate Musk. I liken his leadership and innovative skills to be significantly worse than Rory Reed. Rory Reed was the head of AMD before Lisa Su was hired. He was the guy that said that AMD was no longer going to compete in the CPU space. Look at where the CPU market is now that Lisa Su is leading AMD for comparison.

Rory Reed did not, however, attempt to obscure what he was doing and how AMD was performing. The significantly worse part, IMO, for Musk is that he was doing things that would distract attention for almost every single quarterly earnings report from Tesla because they were, and are, bad. Tesla is not making money and has considerable problems. Musk's actions, such as launching his personal Tesla on Falcon Heavy, distracted investors from the fact that Tesla was not doing well. As I see it, this is deceptive.

Here's a quote from an opinion article:

The master of distraction is at it again. For every onslaught of negative news, Musk — with help from his business interests in space travel, super-tunnels, artificial intelligence and electric cars — rushes to regain attention with a bigger, positive reaction, often of questionable feasibility but always sweeping in scale and impossible to ignore.

If you want to read the full article, here is the link - https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...overage/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.dc802f52c0cc

Will Musk's companies rebound and actually start doing well if he is no longer at the helm? No one knows. However, if they find someone on par with Lisa Su, I think they will.