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Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

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Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#281

Post by onetimemanytime »

rayiner wrote: post #252
chollida1 wrote: post #5

The sad piece of karma in all of this is that Musk tweeted in an effort to destroy the shorts. His tweet turned out to: - give the shorts a big dip in his stock, - an investigation by the SEC - an investigation by the DOJ - the backing off of a deep pocketed investor in the Saudis - Him potentially being personally liable, which would mean having to step away from SpaceX and Tesla if he was found guilty of fraud. Thi…

All great points. This is a lot worse than it probably seems to most people on HN. Imagine a prosecutor telling a jury that Elon funds a lavish lifestyle (with lots of details of the excess) with loans against his Tesla stock. That shorts of the stock threatened him personally, because of those loans, and alleging that he threw the $420 figure out there to counter-act the shorts. That’s a terrible narrative to have t…

>> Imagine a prosecutor telling a jury that Elon funds a lavish lifestyle (with lots of details of the excess) with loans against his Tesla stock.

Not going anywhere. Even if Tesla goes to zero, Musk still is a billionaire, 10 times over with SpaceX. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#Ownership,_funding_and_...

It's not greed, he just hates that some don't bow to him.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#282

Post by metalsahu »

phdp wrote: post #110
beaconstudios wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He then went and taunted short sellers on Twitter when the stock went up in response to his tweet. Source? I legitimately haven't seen this. > Also I don't believe his intent matter for criminal liability in market manipulation. I'm not saying it does. Where did I say it does? I don't understand why I keep getting this response.

He sent shorts to David Einhorn https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/elon-musk-ma...

It was a company, Chubbies, that sent short shorts to David Einhorn not Elon. https://insideevs.com/chubbies-sends-short-shorts-tesla-shor...

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#283

Post by supernovae »

MrEfficiency wrote: post #66
S_A_P wrote: post #53

Sometimes its possible to care so much that you lose sight of what is important. This happened to Elon. I think this will be a case study someday about CEO ethics. I found it very interesting that when he was on the Joe Rogan podcast he had so much to say about social media, and none of it was complementary. How he did not see the dichotomy of his twitter use and this situation strikes me as humorous. I feel like Elo…

Ive said really stupid stuff on Twitter and I lost fans as a result. I cannot explain myself in only a few hundred characters, especially when people dont click links, or only see a small portion of the situation. I did learn my lesson in my 20s.

twitter wasn't around when we were in our 20s...

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#284

Post by danso »

polkapolka wrote: post #196
danso wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The small upside of this is that maybe Musk will be convinced to settle the libel suit that was announced yesterday [0]. For the suit filed in the UK, the max loss would be ~$400K (unless it goes to trial and he ends up paying Vern Unsworth's legal costs), and it would spare us the sad spectacle of Musk trying to prove that Unsworth is a pedo. [0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/cave-rescuer-su...

I give Musk a little bit more credit than brutely calling someone a pedo without any proof. If you are as rich as Musk, there must be someone you can pay to dig up dirt on your opponents. Now there may be more trouble in showing that proof than settling. 400k is nothing for Musk, but principles and hurt ego are priceless.

Musk had repeatedly challenged reporters to “investigate” Vernon Unsworth, and they did. They found no criminal records in the UK or Thailand, no marriage records, and AFAIK, no record of Unsworth visiting or moving to Thailand in the timespan Musk describes. They did however find Unsworth’s girlfriend, who is in her 40s and had been posting about her relationship on social media for years, which would support Unsworth’s assertions that he had first visited Thailand in 2011.

If Musk is as good as a human as his devout fans think he is, he’ll put truth and his grand hopes for humanity over his ego, and give Unsworth — who let’s not forget, was essential to saving those boys’ lives — a proper apology and compensation.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#285

Post by Boxxed »

mikestew wrote: post #241
kasey_junk wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantically shorting doesn’t have to be borrowing the underlying instrument. Put options are another way to trade on the idea that a stock will go down. I’d actually bet it’s the more common way. It would still be colloquially referred to as being short.

That's actually the opposite of "pedantically" given that you're playing loose with the definition. Pedantically, shorting is selling a financial instrument you don't own, with the idea (though it is not a requirement to fit the definition) that you'll give it back later by buying at a price lower than it is now. What you described is options trading, one method of which hedges against declines in stock price. Yeah,…

Arguing over the definition of Pedantic. I think we've reached peak HN.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#286

Post by danso »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #258
danso wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The small upside of this is that maybe Musk will be convinced to settle the libel suit that was announced yesterday [0]. For the suit filed in the UK, the max loss would be ~$400K (unless it goes to trial and he ends up paying Vern Unsworth's legal costs), and it would spare us the sad spectacle of Musk trying to prove that Unsworth is a pedo. [0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/cave-rescuer-su...

This lawsuit is peanuts to Musk, money wise. Say he settles it for $20 million, that's nothing. And maybe Musk hires dozens of detectives that find out later that Unsworth went with underage girls (a lot of Europeans with some money do over there.) Still it's very petty of Musk to pick a public fight with a "commoner"

He wouldn’t settle it for $20M because libel damages aren’t capped at ~$400K in the UK. It doesn’t take “dozens of detectives” to undermine Unsworth’s story, but Musk has not yet managed to show anything, not even a FB or forum post, that would contradict Unsworth’s assertion of when he first visited Thailand.

The stereotype of white men going to Thailand for sex tourism isn’t proof. And to think it is evidence is incredibly ironic, because Unsworth, besides being the resident expert of the cave’s geography, reportedly had to push hard for Thai authorities to take his advice to bring in his British expert diver friends who ended up conducting the rescue.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#287

Post by bedhead »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #148
bedhead wrote: post #112

I'm not sure what he could be criminally charged with - neither he nor anyone else at the company sold stock and profited from his idiotic tweets. I believe you actually need to profit from manipulation in order for it to enter the realm of criminal.

They caused damage to short sellers when the stock price rose because of Musk's lie and they had to cover their losses, how is that not criminal? You don't have to personally profit to commit a crime.

To my knowledge, and I'm in the industry, that is not a CRIMINAL act

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#288

Post by danso »

mandeepj wrote: post #251
danso wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was reading r/TeslaMotors that day and a long made the astute observation that shorting the stock after Musk's announcement when it hit around $380 was the most logical thing to do, because at most you'd be out 10% if Musk were telling the truth. If I had a trading account I think I might have gone for that.

> If I had a trading account I think I might have gone for that. It does not take that long to open a trading account or you could have taken one of your friends help to execute this trade

Well, as others have pointed out, I might have been in for a bigger loss based on my assumptions about shorting :). I mean, had Musk been telling the truth.

Re: Tesla Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Musk Statements

#290

Post by coolspot »

khamoud wrote: post #104
nostrademons wrote: post #97

Imagine a private company with ballistic missiles and submarines... I was musing the other day that Elon Musk may be planning to run for president. Why? Well, if there's one thing that 2016 showed us, it's that the road to the White House runs through snubbing Wall Street, calling the press a bunch of boring liars, accusing your opponents of pedophilia, making bizarre incoherent tweet storms in the middle of the nigh…

It'd be funny but since he was born in South Africa he's disqualified from running.

Vice president then.
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