Elon Musk’s Tesla tweet upset the SEC, again
Musk is obliged to have all tweets pre-approved, which obligation he violated in a tweet last week about production figures
San Francisco — On Monday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Tesla CEO Elon Musk had violated a fraud settlement by making new, inaccurate statements on Twitter, pursuing a contempt order against the head of the electric-car maker and sending shares of the company down 5% in extended trade. The SEC’s request could potentially re-open a turbulent chapter for the electric-vehicle (EV) maker in which regulators, last year, accused Musk of fraud for making misleading tweets about plans to take the company private, and demanded that he be stripped of his CEO title. Musk, Tesla and the SEC settled the lawsuit, and part of the settlement called for any material statements made by Musk on social media to be vetted by the company in advance. In a court filing on Monday, the regulator pointed to a Musk February 19 tweet: “Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019,” noting that Musk did not seek or receive pre-approval before publishing this tweet, which w...
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