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SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

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Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#121

Post by voodooranger »

detaro wrote: post #80
blhack wrote: post #64

My knowledge of how publicly traded companies work is very limited, but: Was what he said really that bad? He said: >Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019 And then later corrected himself with: >Meant to say annualized production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k. This seems like a pretty simple mistake to have made,…

The legal point isn't if what he tweeted was "that bad" or not. It's that after he got caught the last time, in the settlement to end the case he agreed to have Tesla legal review all such tweets in the future to make sure he doesn't do it again. He broke that agreement.

i believe elon’s argument is that the offending tweet didn’t need approval because he believed that he was just restating a projection made on the previous earnings call

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#122

Post by Aeolun »

detaro wrote: post #85
blhack wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a human being who also happens to be the head of a public corporation. We can't expect every single action he takes at every point to be filtered into legalese. IMO, if he had said this in an earnings call, or presented it in a way that made it seem "official", then I could get the problem, but it's twitter .

Tesla registered his Twitter account as an official channel for such information. That brings with it expectations and obligations, since investors etc now have to read it to be fully informed, and has similar relevance to e.g. official Tesla press releases. He specifically agreed to have Tesla legal review all such tweets to make sure he doesn't tweet bad information again , and promptly went and ignored that.

I don’t think the ballpark estimate 0-500k could possibly be interpreted as accurate/reliable (and by extension, bad) information.

Except by some particularly whiny people looking for an excuse.

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#123

Post by rchaud »

mjevans wrote: post #26

This is where a software solution might actually help. As an example, I've added some keywords to a script in my IRC client that if they exist the message is stopped by my client. In Elon Musks' case this should be Tesla (and probably some other court mandated muzzles) and should be on their Twitter clients, and other "designated publication channels" that the ruling covers. Why? Because remembering to not do things…

Are you serious? Literally no other major CEO has ever needed something like this because they can exercise the barest minimum of self-discipline. Most actually have a built in "STFU button" when it comes to making financial projections on Twitter.

I thought Musk spent 120 hrs/wk working and sleeping in the factory, why would he need to be tweeting about production numbers that have yet to be hit?

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#124

Post by gamblor956 »

eduah wrote: post #87
grigjd3 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government isn't canning Musk. They're fining him for releasing material misinformation about his company. This has been well established in the law.

Not misinformation, guidance was 350 - 500. This is a technicality of not getting approval for a tweet that could be interpreted as saying they are definitely hitting 500k 8 months from now. This is stupid. https://twitter.com/_jameshatfield_/status/11001772987230945...

In the time between Elon's two tweets, enough trades could have occurred based on the misrepresentation that investors were financially harmed.

The point of the SEC is to prevent harms like that. The point of the SEC's 2018 settlement with Elon was to prevent him from investor-harming tweets like the one he made by requiring tweets about Tesla to be reviewed for accuracy and correctness before posting.

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#125

Post by jacques_chester »

mjevans wrote: post #26

This is where a software solution might actually help. As an example, I've added some keywords to a script in my IRC client that if they exist the message is stopped by my client. In Elon Musks' case this should be Tesla (and probably some other court mandated muzzles) and should be on their Twitter clients, and other "designated publication channels" that the ruling covers. Why? Because remembering to not do things…

> Because remembering to not do things is a restraint that is extremely mentally burdensome and thus difficult to get correct 100% of the time.

I have ADHD. I legitimately struggle with impulses.

Here's why I am not on Twitter: I have ADHD. I legitimately struggle with impulses.

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#126

Post by detaro »

zebraflask wrote: post #55
privateSFacct wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't need to delete it, but if he is going to post market moving information (like production for 2019 is not 400K but 500K) he'd get the approved by someone else like Tesla's GC.

On the other hand, how is that market-moving given Elon's very public history of stirring the pot? You expect this from him.

No, you expect that a top representative of a publicly traded company obeys the law on official company channels. E.g. if your job is to trade on Tesla based on newly announced information, ignoring facts from such a message might very well get you in financial trouble if it turns out you shouldn't have ignored it and your clients loose money because of that.

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#127

Post by cat199 »

mlindner wrote: post #60
privateSFacct wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if that person has posted: 1) MAJOR false market moving information regarding a buyout with funding committed that both never happened and turned out to be basically hot air to get back at shorts 2) AGREED to pre-approval of tweets about tesla so that "mistakes" wouldn't happen again 3) Promptly tweaks another FALSE and market moving prediction about 2019 production (500K), which almost immediately leads to the r…

Shareholders have not been losing money from these tweets. The short sellers have been. The SEC should not be protecting those who are harming a company and who are not share holders. If anything the TSLA shareholders should sue the SEC for material damage because of these attacks. Finally, the guidance wasn't 400k, it was 300k-500k. So this was already public information.

it's not about shareholders, it's about ensuring 'healthy markets'.. manipulating markets in either direction damages this.

also: the terms of the agreement required him to have statements audited by counsel, this was apparently not - even if it was 100% spot-on with no ambiguity it would still be a violation

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#128

Post by travisoneill1 »

darkpuma wrote: post #5
DSingularity wrote: post #2

Offending Tweet: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1098009983931707393

Was that particular tweet the offender, or the two subsequent tweets? > "Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019" > "Meant to say annualized production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k." The article seems to suggest it was tweets about projected numbers. Edit: From the filing: > "On February 19, 2019, Musk tweeted, “T…

So all he has to do is find a fall guy to say he approved it, and it will be thrown out?

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#129

Post by joshuamorton »

buboard wrote: post #113
CPLX wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes to intent. Typically the law tries to at least somewhat take into account intent, like if someone omits something from a filing by accident or in a deliberate attempt to conceal, for example. Pointing out his statements demonstrates that he's aware of the rules and is choosing not to respect them. That's usually a sign that someone should be on the higher end of the typical punishment range for a given act.

so, the intent was not to mislead investors, but to insult the fcc. snowflake committees much

No, the intent is that he doesn't take the secs censure seriously. It helps to address the question of if this was an honest mistake or not, and the judgement will likely take that into account.

Re: SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

#130

Post by jacques_chester »

roywiggins wrote: post #41
mjevans wrote: post #26

This is where a software solution might actually help. As an example, I've added some keywords to a script in my IRC client that if they exist the message is stopped by my client. In Elon Musks' case this should be Tesla (and probably some other court mandated muzzles) and should be on their Twitter clients, and other "designated publication channels" that the ruling covers. Why? Because remembering to not do things…

Musk would start getting creative with a thesaurus.

1. Judges at this level are pretty smart.

2. They tend to take contempt seriously.

3. Especially if you double down on it.

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