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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

#791

Post by jhabdas »

threeseed wrote: post #361
rl3 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current Apple products are meticulously, exactingly designed and built, ... I disagree. Look at the MBP keyboard issues, or the declining quality of OS X. Under Jobs that shit wouldn't fly. Other roles aside, one of Jobs' most important functions was that of acting as a sanity check to ensure that the constiuent parts of any given product came together as a cohesive whole.

Again with the revisionist history. Did you ever use the first 3 versions of OSX ? Because I did. And the quality was pretty unacceptable compared to OS9 or Windows. On the hardware side how long did Apple stick with the coffee puck mouse. Or how about the iPhone 1 never even having 3G or MMS or how about all of the issues with the GPU. But yet Steve Jobs still shipped it all. Why ? Because his slogan was always "rea…

When did HN turn into Reddit?

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

#792

Post by matwood »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #781
matwood wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly did the shorts do here? Musk has brought on all this scrutiny himself. The shorts didn't bail out Solar City, miss nearly every production target, use TSLA as a way to personally finance a lavish lifestyle, or commit securities fraud. The shorts are all over this stock because of issues like the above. They were not the cause of those issues.

I'm ignorant of the practical aspects here: aren't shorts self-fulfilling eventually if the people taking this positions are powerful enough? If I'm long on Tesla, then I lend my shares for someone and the shares happen to fall at all (normal market variations) then I lost money. If I see more short orders then surely I'm going to get antsy, move to "a more stable share", pushing the price down a little, making some…

If you see vultures circling a dying or dead animal, does it mean they killed it? The vultures show up when something is dying or dead.

TSLAs financials have been a disaster for a long time. Its stock price has been completely disconnected from reality for a long time. Musk/TSLA fans have buoyed the stock price, but people are starting to realize that even if the TSLA car is nice it doesn't mean it's a good company.

> aren't shorts self-fulfilling eventually if the people taking this positions are powerful enough?

Powerful enough to do what? There is not some grand short conspiracy. TSLA and Musk have given the shorts all they need. Yes, a lot of short interest could cause people not to go long, but because people use short interest as a proxy to something is wrong at the company. It only takes 2 mins of research to see that TSLAs financials are a disaster. The CEO is on Twitter calling people pedophiles and now looks to have committed securities fraud. The shorts are a symptom of the problems of the company, they are not the cause.

> Add to that the ability of people to win on large short positions by selling shares 'they' are holding (pushing the price down),

First, you're making an assumption this person holds enough shares to move the market (millions of shares change hands per day in TSLA). Second, there are all sorts of rules around market manipulation of that type. If someone is moving that kind of money to move TSLA with the sort of daily volume it has, then that person is on the radar.

You know Musk how could screw all the shorts? Get off Twitter and execute. Hit a target more than once a year. Actually make some money. Unfortunately it may be too late because of the TSLA debt load (added to by the Solar City bailout which was itself shady).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2018/08/09/solarcity...

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

#793

Post by mitchty »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #743
King-Aaron wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually confused. By "another company's obscure sports car " I assume you're referring to the Lotus Elise - arguably one of the world's better known and more successful sports cars.

I'm British so I also take offense to this (how very dare you!) but I'm assuming this was written from a US-centric point of view. The Elise and Exige may have been fairly common this side of the pond but I get the impression they're very rare outside of the UK.

No more rare than any other sports car. I’ve seen more on the streets here in the middle of the country than I have seen of nissan gtrs.

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

#794

Post by dpwm »

realharo wrote: post #703
chrisweekly wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just commenting to my wife how remarkable I find it that my 2012 Macbook Pro 15 Retina is meeting all my needs as a software consultant. I used to think 3 years, maybe 4, was the useful lifespan of a high-end machine for daily professional use. In a few months it'll be 7 (seven) years old. It has 3 or 4 dead pixels, but everything else about it is working flawlessly. Maybe they don't make em like they used to,…

I'm still using my mid-2012 Asus laptop that was like €1300 at the time. I did buy a few upgrades since then (16GB RAM, bigger SSD, new battery) but given that I don't do any gaming, there is very little that a new purschase would get me. So this is definitely not a Mac-specific thing.

Just to add another datum: Thinkpad T420, 2011. Bought used two years ago and still the best laptop I've ever owned.

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

#795

Post by village-idiot »

elguyosupremo wrote: post #675
village-idiot wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong on two levels. Intent doesn’t matter here, the SEC is alleging negligence (read the actual complaint). Remember that this is a civil case, not a criminal one. Second is that he’s being accused of securities fraud, not insider trading. So the SEC doesn’t actually need to prove that he benefited, only that rules were broken.

The SEC is alleging he broke rule 10b-5, which says that the defrauding actions must be "in connection with the purchase or sale of any security". The SEC complaint doesn't seem to allege negligence at all, in the claim for relief it says 'Defendant, with scienter' which definitely does not imply negligence. The complaint alleges that the statements were made in connection with the sale of securities but I don't real…

The other commenter covered the bit about “in connection with the purchase of sale of a security” better than I would.

They absolutely allege negligence.

> As a result, Musk knew or was reckless in not knowing that his August 7 statements were false and misleading.

That’s negligence. This exact phrase is repeated 3 times in the complaint, and is actually in a section title, right before point 68.

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

#796

Post by repolfx »

datavirtue wrote: post #259
djsumdog wrote: post #68

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…

The engineers created the iPhone and had to beg Jobs to fund the product launch. Well documented.

Really? Where can I read about this?

What I recall is that Jobs tasked Apple to create a phone and had a bake-off between the iPod guy (Tony something) and Federighi, and the iPod side of the firm created a device with a click wheel, Federighi's team created a device with a touch screen and Jobs made the call to go with the touch screen. It'd be weird if it went from that to Jobs having to be begged to launch it, especially as it was clearly awesome and Jobs himself had been so deeply involved in the design.

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

#797

Post by _Microft »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #773
_Microft wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why they want him to fail badly? They're maliciously envious - which is the product of an overly good self-image colliding with reality. They wish him harm because if he fails, he'll no longer remind them that that's how it looks like to actually achieve something.

Who are "they"? Anyway I can think of two parties: short sellers, who actively bet on Tesla shares losing value - and who are very likely behind all the negative press about Tesla, including making sure every accident a Tesla ends up in (especially if it's down to autopilot or involves fire or a death) stays in the news for weeks if possible. The other would be competing car makers, who only now are starting to reali…

Short sellers and competitors have a financial reason to not like Musks success. Average Joe does not and still there are enough of them hating him and/or begruding his success. It's "them" that I was talking about.

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

#798

Post by village-idiot »

andys627 wrote: post #570
not2b wrote: post #406

He was trying to bankrupt the short-sellers, and he was doing it by lying: the price would soar, their options would be called, and they'd lose their shirts, all for a lie. When you're head of a public company, that's a crime. Not only will the SEC come after him, but the short sellers can probably sue him too. I have huge respect for his engineering ability, but he has messed up badly. He's overextended and it seems…

> He was trying to bankrupt the short-sellers, and he was doing it by lying I'm out of the loop - can you point me to some proof of this?

The actual complaint includes a few tweets by Musk warning shorts to get out within a specific timeframe.

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

#799

Post by anonu »

flud wrote: post #744
anonu wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the deal was that he step down as CEO. I think that was not acceptable to him. Ultimately, I believe he will lose. A strong operator to handle traditional car company problems will make TSLA sky rocket

Source pls?

Faber just said on CNBC the settlement was couldn't be chairman for 2 years, add a couple independent directors, and pay a personal fine. I initially heard "step down"... But it seems just from the board for a couple years

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

#800

Post by village-idiot »

bjl wrote: post #493
peteey wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law says a lot of things. I'm ok with short sellers losing their shirts regardless.

Why the short seller hate? They play a very important role in exposing fraud and inefficient allocation of capital.

Because they expose fraud and inefficient allocation of capital.
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