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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

#201

Post by Dylan16807 »

ikeboy wrote: post #197
Dylan16807 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody's claiming the annualized number is a lie. I was talking about whether "Musk meant the annualized number." is true or a lie. > The claim is the original post is wrongly saying 500k total for the year and wasn't run past someone else like Musk promised he would for all Tesla related statements. The agreement was that he would get approval for posts with material information. If he's citing a number everyone a…

It doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what the statement would be reasonably expected to mean. Saying we'll produce 500k can't reasonably be read as we'll have an annualized rate of 500k, which is why he needed to issue a correction.

> It doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what the statement would be reasonably expected to mean.

That depends on whether you consider a misphrasing to be "information".

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

#202

Post by simplicio »

SatvikBeri wrote: post #73
simplicio wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One alternative - have Elon pay out of pocket to all the sorts and anyone else who losses money acting on his tweet addiction." Isn't that what happened last time? Elon basically had to pay off investors who lost money due to the stock swings caused by his tweeting BS?

No – Musk got a slap on the wrist ($20MM) compared to the market movement he caused, and none of that money goes to investors. The tweet moved Tesla's stock by $30/share, or temporarily added over 4 billion dollars to its market cap. It wouldn't really be possible to determine exactly who was damaged by his tweets, so no direct restitution is possible.

The movement in the market cap is 4 billion, but the actual damage done was presumably much less than that, and was just to people who bought the stock during the brief period it was artificially inflated.

In anycase, this article seems to disagree with you that the money wasn't paid out to investors: (https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/29/17918252/elon-musk-tesla-...)

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

#204

Post by Dylan16807 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #124
eduah wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Does it matter that it was outside of trading hours?

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

#205

Post by sangnoir »

cmurf wrote: post #145
javagram wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk and his lawyers agreed to the terms of the settlement. The only reason he had to settle in the first place was because he tweeted false, market-moving information via twitter. Maybe Elon should have considered the consequences then. Why didn’t he just hand over his twitter password to a social media manager and stop tweeting once he lost millions of dollars over the last tweet?

Why didn't the lawyers and board require it?

The former work for him, and he controls the latter. The "independent" board member Tesla added after signing the agreement was non other than Larry Ellison

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

#206

Post by darkpuma »

Derek_MK wrote: post #189
xenadu02 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the problem was that he was projecting 2019 production publicly That is also incorrect. The settlement only mandated that Musk get company approval for Tesla-related tweets. It would have been as simple as him sending an email with the proposed tweet to get signoff before blasting it out there. This is actually extremely common and partially for these sorts of reasons. The SEC asked Tesla if Musk followed the agree…

> The SEC asked Tesla if Musk followed the agreement by getting approval for the tweet. He didn't, thus this filing. This is the unbelievable part. "We agree to NOT do X, under penalty of law." [Does X] "Did you do X?" "yeah lol"

Elon is the guy who fucked up, not Telsa. Whoever the FEC asked that question to at Tesla was probably not Elon himself, and the person on the receiving end of that question probably didn't want to lie to a fed.

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

#207

Post by Derek_MK »

darkpuma wrote: post #206
Derek_MK wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The SEC asked Tesla if Musk followed the agreement by getting approval for the tweet. He didn't, thus this filing. This is the unbelievable part. "We agree to NOT do X, under penalty of law." [Does X] "Did you do X?" "yeah lol"

Elon is the guy who fucked up, not Telsa. Whoever the FEC asked that question to at Tesla was probably not Elon himself, and the person on the receiving end of that question probably didn't want to lie to a fed.

Yeah, I guess I understand why they confirmed it, it's just wild that this is happening right now.

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

#208

Post by jacques_chester »

afastow wrote: post #185
eduah wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the point. He only violated it if you take the obviously wrong interpretation that the 500k was a new material statement. It was not. The agreement only covered new, material information, not repeating a previously given the high-end estimate. Also, note that the market was closed at the time of the tweet and the second tweet clearing up any possible confusion, thus, having no impact on the stock.

No, he was required to get pre-approval even if he was repeating previously released information verbatim. They probably wouldn't have caught him if he was actually repeating it verbatim, but he still would have been breaking the requirement to get pre-approval. > According to Tesla’s Policy, any edits to a pre-approved Written Communication or even releasing a verbatim pre-approved Written Communication more than tw…

You'll note "two days".

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

#209

Post by ggggtez »

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,…

>was it that bad

>claimed 500k, but actually 400k

That's a 25% increase! Yeah that's bad! He was already warned for using twitter to spread misleading info about the value of his company. He should know better.

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

#210

Post by darkpuma »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #201
ikeboy wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what the statement would be reasonably expected to mean. Saying we'll produce 500k can't reasonably be read as we'll have an annualized rate of 500k, which is why he needed to issue a correction.

> It doesn't matter what he meant, it matters what the statement would be reasonably expected to mean. That depends on whether you consider a misphrasing to be "information".

Did investors know it was a 'misphrasing' before he issued a correction hours later?
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