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Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

latimes.com

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Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#91

Post by elliekelly »

newsbinator wrote: post #49
Despegar wrote: post #8

>Of more concern to Tesla investors: What if he knows something they don’t know about the company’s financial future — and is hoping to hang any failure on the nasty, overreaching regulators rather than his own dubious management skills? That seems very possible. I think the reality of scaling up Tesla to live up to its valuation might be too daunting for Elon to handle. It might even be impossible. EV sales as a % o…

This begs the question: does Elon Musk seem like the kind of person who isn't willing to fail in public? Whether it's for personality reasons or for the sake of keeping his other companies well respected, is he unwilling to let the public lose confidence in him and/or his projects? My guess is he doesn't care that much about our opinions of him, personally and professionally. He might be picking a fight with the SEC…

There’s no such thing as “FU money” with the SEC though. They can bar him from serving in any fiduciary capacity on behalf of any company under their jurisdiction. For life.

Musk is playing with fire.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#92

Post by mikejb »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #88

It's pretty simple. Musk was hounded by short sellers who bet billions against Tesla and then spread patently false information about the company's activities and prospects[1]. Musk has one of those asymmetric senses of fairness (like the one that drove Gates to tears during Microsoft's anti-trust trials) that lost all faith in the SEC as it stood by and did nothing about what he felt was clearly illegal behavior. In…

Just as a heads-up: Your 2nd link doesn't work for anybody but you (references a file on your local machine), and leaks your user name on that machine.

Maybe this is the link you wanted to post (contains the quote you posted):

https://www.dlapiper.com/~/media/files/people/weiner-perrie/...

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#93

Post by dgellow »

mikejb wrote: post #92
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #88

It's pretty simple. Musk was hounded by short sellers who bet billions against Tesla and then spread patently false information about the company's activities and prospects[1]. Musk has one of those asymmetric senses of fairness (like the one that drove Gates to tears during Microsoft's anti-trust trials) that lost all faith in the SEC as it stood by and did nothing about what he felt was clearly illegal behavior. In…

Just as a heads-up: Your 2nd link doesn't work for anybody but you (references a file on your local machine), and leaks your user name on that machine. Maybe this is the link you wanted to post (contains the quote you posted): https://www.dlapiper.com/~/media/files/people/weiner-perrie/...

Maybe dang or another admin could fix his comment? Or at least remove the personal information (first name, last name).

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#94

Post by elliekelly »

pbreit wrote: post #28
LiquidSky wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if it's market moving. Or rather, the terms of his settlement are that all of his communications need to be pre-approved by counsel to determine what is market moving. He didn't get the pre-approval so he's broken the agreement.

The actual settlement notice says "put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk’s communications" which appeared to happen in this case. [1] Also, since the 500,000 number was already public and referring only to Model 3s, it's entirely plausible that 500,000 total cars for the year is not material. The SEC conveniently leaves out this exculpatory evidence. 1: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release…

It’s not exculpatory because by Tesla’s attorneys own admission Musk failed to follow the procedures put in place per the settlement agreement.

It doesn’t matter what he tweeted. It matters that he tweeted something related to Tesla and that something wasn’t pre-approved by Tesla’s legal department before he tweeted it.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#95

Post by elliekelly »

xvf22 wrote: post #3

I'm honestly unsure what he has to gain by doing this. I can't imagine that the departure of the counsel isn't related. Maybe the GC announced he was leaving and that rattled Musk somehow? Very strange.

I suspect you have the cause/effect of the GC leaving backwards.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#96

Post by tranchms »

Tesla will not have a $35k EV anytime soon.

The battery pack alone costs more than $20k.

Tesla can’t produce that car for $15k and make a profit.

Gigafactory Battery production is expected to continue ramping up, with higher throughput lines, but operating costs are still exorbitant, and battery production is barely breaking even at current production. In fact, from what I know they’re in the red.

I don’t see a $35k Model 3 until battery production costs cut in half, which I won’t expect for another 3-5 years.

I know Tesla is beginning to manufacture it’s own batteries, but to be honest, I don’t see them succeeding.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#97

Post by unityByFreedom »

macinjosh wrote: post #80
smallgovt wrote: post #79

I don't see how he can reasonably defend himself in this situation. His tweet was both material and inaccurate. Tweeting material information without clearance is obviously against his settlement. What confuses me is that TSLA's price hasn't suffered. I have a hunch this isn't as serious of a matter as is being reported, but I'm not sure why.

I think it is not serious because on Tesla's earning call they already announced the same 500k number.

To be held in contempt may not mean much to Musk. The SEC apparently takes violations of agreements seriously, as it should. We don't need companies building up their valuations with fake news so that we can end up with another 2008. It's in taxpayers' interest to keep misleading CEO's like Musk in check. And, this is a very small "check" to his power. In fact, it is something he already agreed to do. If he didn't want to follow the agreement, he didn't need to settle with the SEC, which is what he did for about a day before turning back and settling with them.

It seems he is changing his mind again about that settlement. Apparently nothing is settled with Musk. He changes his mind daily. How can someone run a company like this? Employees must be afraid to do anything without his say-so, and even then it may not hold true for long.

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#98

Post by [deleted] »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #88

It's pretty simple. Musk was hounded by short sellers who bet billions against Tesla and then spread patently false information about the company's activities and prospects[1]. Musk has one of those asymmetric senses of fairness (like the one that drove Gates to tears during Microsoft's anti-trust trials) that lost all faith in the SEC as it stood by and did nothing about what he felt was clearly illegal behavior. In…

[deleted]

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#99

Post by eitland »

dgellow wrote: post #93
mikejb wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a heads-up: Your 2nd link doesn't work for anybody but you (references a file on your local machine), and leaks your user name on that machine. Maybe this is the link you wanted to post (contains the quote you posted): https://www.dlapiper.com/~/media/files/people/weiner-perrie/...

Maybe dang or another admin could fix his comment? Or at least remove the personal information (first name, last name).

Flagged (for moderator attention, not for deletion)

Re: Is Elon Musk trying to commit ‘suicide by SEC’ by taunting the agency?

#100

Post by elliekelly »

ceejayoz wrote: post #53
motohagiography wrote: post #51

Musk paid the SEC $20m in his last settlement, what do they want, gratitude? There is definitely a cabal gunning for him, what I don't understand is why. There are funds short TSLA who are talking their books as well, but he seems to have provoked a deeper coalition of interests that is hard to pinpoint. All I can tell is much of the criticism seems contrived. Maybe he's truly checked out because this is all just a s…

> Musk paid the SEC $20m in his last settlement, what do they want, gratitude? They want him to follow the other terms of the settlement, presumably. The fine's only a part of the punishment.

But it (aside from the $20 million fine) it isn’t even a punishment. Every publicly-traded company has their tweets reviewed. Every. Single. One. It’s normal. It’s reasonably prudent for both the CEO and the shareholders. No shareholder wants to wake up and find 5%+ of market cap has been wiped out with a tweet.
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