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SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

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Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#181

I'm willing to bet the only thing that will come of this is a fine and a slap on the wrist.

Why? He's a huge liability to the company every day he remains with this hanging over his head. The SEC directly says he "violated, and unless restrained and enjoined will continue to violate, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act". Other than a fine, they're pushing for him to be barred from serving as an officer of a public company.

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd hope the company itself would be fine. I really hate this idea of the grand visionary. A good friend of mine who is a mechanical engineer despises Musk. I listened to a bit of his Joe Regan interview and when Regan asked him how he has the time to do all of the things he does, there are smoke jokes about him being an alien, but not once did he say, "Well I have an amazing team of engineers" and credit all the tho…

Are Apple products different now that Jobs are gone? Yes. Jobs as local despot acted as a curb to bad decisions. Jobs had a vision which acted as a countervailing force to keep Apple from being completely sucked into being a money grubbing luxury goods company. the core people that make and design all their overpriced, planned obsolescence devices are still there, often uncredited, while everyone else likes to focus…

Your argument is fundamentally unconvincing because you're using unsubstantiated, subjective claims that anyone can disagree with and thereby nullify.

While you say that Jobs curbed "bad" decisions, and that now the company is "money grubbing," and that he alone kept Apple going in the "right" direction, you don't explain why you think so.

Someone could say the opposite (I don't have an opinion).

For example, far more people choose to purchase iPhones for far more money than they did during Steve Jobs' tenure, so there is some evidence that "bad" product decisions from your perspective are actually good product decisions in the eyes of Apple's customers.

Likewise, Apple's efforts to emphasize ethics and responsibility with respect to the environment, diversity and privacy are mostly new to the post-Jobs era. It may prove hard to argue that spending so much money on those priorities amounts to "money-grubbing," but I can't say for sure because you haven't really tried to argue anything at all.

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion: We (as a society and a country) need Tesla to succeed. Tesla can't succeed with Elon Musk as CEO at this point. So Elon should be removed.

Owning about 12k shares of TSLA, having followed the company closely since inception (when it was ran by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning), I can't see Tesla succeeding without Musk. It'll end up acquired, or as a boutique manufacturer like Ferrari. Tesla's value is Musk's determination. Still, he needs to choose his actions more wisely, clearly.

> Owning about 12k shares of TSLA

If only all of the TSLA fanboys posted how much money they have on the line. After reading this, all the rest of your comments suddenly make sense.

Pro Tip: Don't get emotional over your investments or you are gonna lose the ability to think rationally and get burned.

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#184
post #84

>According to Musk, he calculated the $420 price per share based on a 20% premium over that day’s closing share price because he thought 20% was a “standard premium” in going-private transactions. This calculation resulted in a price of $419, and Musk stated tha the rounded the price up to $420 because he had recently learned about the number’s significance in marijuana culture and thought his girlfriend “would find…

[deleted]

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#185

A short while ago (per my comment history), I asked whether Elon Musk should remain as CEO of Tesla. I think, for my part, the answer is clearly no. He might be brilliant, he has undeniably had a hand in creating something awesome with Tesla and SpaceX's technology, but he's now a danger to the very thing he helped build. This is just one of the lawsuits filed against him or Tesla in recent weeks that have him as the…

There are few leaders in the business world as capable as Musk. Would we even be having this conversation without Twitter? Social media considered harmful.

Most business leaders in the world are far more capable than Musk at actually running successful companies. You just don't hear about them because they spend their time running their companies or with their families instead of bragging about what a great job they're doing on twitter. (Here's a hint: if you have to publicly brag about doing a great job, you really aren't.)

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#186

For a genius he's a bit of a moron

Unless he's an evil genius. There are financial advantages to tanking the value of your stock in the short term, especially if your primary goal is to increase your ownership in the company. I believe on more than one occasion he has made controversial statements which tanked the price, then purchased millions worth of shares to "inspire confidence".

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#187
post #178

As I said nine days ago in this box and was roundly downvoted therefor: "Good chance that Musk will get placed on the bad actors list and will be unable to serve as an officer or executive of Telsa." What I don't understand is how this took 10% of the price of Tesla shares. How is it possible that this event, which was a 100% certainty, was not already baked into the price?

My guess would be, a good number of TSLA investors--probably more than most publicly traded stocks--are retail investors.

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Elon Musk is removed as CEO at Tesla, Tesla is over. I find it curious that an innovative American company pushing to help our carbon problem by going electric is so lambasted, shorted, constantly under attack. It cannot be argued that Tesla pushed forward both electric cars and self-driving vehicles as a major force (original self-driving push was a DoD X-Prize) Personally I like when American companies succeed a…

What’s wrong with someone else stepping in to run things? Why is E.M. the one person out of 7 billion on Earth who can possibly run the company? People said the same thing about Jobs, but here Apple is, still printing money.

Apple coasted on for a long time under Sculley as well, but in the long run, they stagnated and almost went out of business. After Jobs came back and restructured everything, they went on to become the most valuable public company in the world. It's premature to say that Apple is fine without Jobs, companies have a lot of inertia, for better or for worse.

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#189
post #178

As I said nine days ago in this box and was roundly downvoted therefor: "Good chance that Musk will get placed on the bad actors list and will be unable to serve as an officer or executive of Telsa." What I don't understand is how this took 10% of the price of Tesla shares. How is it possible that this event, which was a 100% certainty, was not already baked into the price?

> How is it possible that this event, which was a 100% certainty, was not already baked into the price?

Nothing is ever 100% certainty. And this isn't the outcome, just the lawsuit. There is plenty still left to chance.

But I've just ordered a 5-ton bucket of popcorn!

Re: SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

#190
post #44
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any previous examples of someone doing something similar to what Musk did and the punishments they received? I don't normally follow SEC cases, but this seems like a pretty extreme potential punishment compared to the slap on the wrist that many people were predicting.

Yes. SEC litigation releases, press releases, report major updates to cases including the resolution. Here is a Google search for "prohibited acting officer", the key legal phrase/keywords, on the relevant section of the SEC website. https://www.google.com/search?q=prohibited+acting+officer+si...

I was asking what the punishment is for similar crimes and that isn't the same as asking for what crimes have caused a similar punishment. I looked through the first few results on that page and they all seemed, in my opinion, to be more severe crimes than what Musk is accused of doing.
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