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SEC Asks Manhattan Federal Court to Hold Elon Musk in Contempt

wsj.com

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

#151

Post by avar »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #128
darkpuma wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. Getting out of contempt of court is so easy! Just add a little perjury on top. Who's keeping track anyway?

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

#153

Post by mcguire »

zebraflask wrote: post #117
michaelt wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for most crimes, saying "But I have a well known history of doing this" would make prosecutors less lenient, not more.

The legality is above my pay grade and will have to be deferred to the experts. Just from an economic line of thought, even a cursory look at Tesla and Elon's history of public statements would make a reasonable investor think "Gee, the CEO talks a lot. Maybe don't read too much into it."

On the other hand, unreasonable fans will listen and will move the stock, so a reasonable investor might want to pay attention.

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

#154

Post by spectramax »

mLuby wrote: post #25
spectramax wrote: post #3

At this point, the board of directors should just demand deletion of his Twitter account. I admire Elon for his vision, and actually also admire his radical style despite of its unpopular image - I watched the video where he smoked pot on the radio show. It was a really amazing conversation about future of humanity. He just needs to stop tweeting. You may say it’s fixing the symptom, but here if we take Twitter away,…

Twitter's value is providing a direct connection from people of note to the masses, bypassing newspaper/TV/radio gatekeepers of yesteryear. You could argue whether that itself is good for society, but it is clear from Twitter's usage that people find it valuable.

Twitter has both pros and cons but I’m convinced that it’s mostly cons.

Going off tangent again, but the same analogy goes with Facebook - it was nice to connect with people and see their updates until it became this rotten, ad driven, divisive tool. Remember FB restricted to college users back in 2005?

Maybe there is some kind of “aging” phenomenon with social networks. They all rot. MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and coming up next - Instagram.

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

#155

Post by Aeolun »

rchaud wrote: post #123
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?

Excitement?

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

#156

Post by justin66 »

voodooranger wrote: post #121
detaro wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In a contempt hearing centered around violation of the terms of the settlement with the SEC, that's probably not a great argument. It's an error Musk would not have made if he'd simply adhered to the agreement and had a lawyer review what he tweeted.

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

#157

Post by kgwgk »

privateSFacct wrote: post #28
mlindner wrote: post #14

Surely the SEC has something better to do than attack someone for tweeting.

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…

“According to counsel, immediately upon seeing Musk’s 7:15 tweet for the first time after Musk had published it, Tesla’s “Designated Securities Counsel” arranged to meet with Musk, and they drafted Musk’s corrective 11:41 tweet together.”

In unrelated news, Tesla announced a few hours later that this designated securities counsel was leaving the company.

“A person familiar with the matter said he was not a good cultural fit with Tesla and wanted to return to his family and law practice in Washington, D.C.”

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

#158

Post by anoncoward111 »

cmurf wrote: post #131
voodooranger wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What he believes doesn't matter, it's what he agreed to that matters, and he violated that agreement.

Apparently we live in a country where the government can murder thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, deny that it ever happened, and profit off of the destruction.

But god help you if you make a tweet that is subjectively incorrect.

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