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SEC Charges Elon Musk With Fraud Over His Statements To Take Tesla Private (bloomberg.com)
U.S. securities regulators have sued Elon Musk for allegedly making false statements related to his abandoned efforts to take Tesla Motors private. Bloomberg News broke the news Thursday, citing docket entry in Manhattan federal court. Last month, Musk had expressed his intentions to take Tesla private, and that he had secured the funding. Taking Tesla private, which would have helped the company avoid making short-term commitments and goals, would be the "best path forward," Musk had said at the time. Even as investors had shown agreement to Musk's move, a few days later, he announced that after further discussions, everyone believes that Tesla should remain public. Amid all of this, some argued that Musk made the "false" claim just to hurt short-sellers. From the lawsuit: This case involves a series of false and misleading statements made by Elon Musk, the Chief Executive Officer of Tesla, Inc. ("Tesla"), on August 7, 2018, regarding taking Tesla, a publicly traded company, private. Musk's statements, disseminated via Twitter, falsely indicated that, should he so choose, it was virtually certain that he could take Tesla private at a purchase price that reflected a substantial premium over Tesla stock's then-current share price, that funding for this multi-billion dollar transaction had been secured, and that the only contingency was a shareholder vote. In truth and in fact, Musk had not even discussed, much less confirmed, key deal terms, including price, with any potential funding source. During a press conference, Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC's division of enforcement, said: A chairman and CEO of a public company has important responsibilities to shareholders. Those responsibilities include the need to be scrupulous and careful about the truth and accuracy of statements made to the investing public, whether those statements are made in traditional forms such as a press release or an earnings call or through less formal methods such as Twitter or other social media. Neither celebrity status nor reputation as a technological innovator provide an exemption from the federal securities laws. In a statement to CNBC, Musk said, "This unjustified action by the SEC leaves me deeply saddened and disappointed. I have always taken action in the best interests of truth, transparency and investors. Integrity is the most important value in my life and the facts will show I never compromised this in any way."
And now he's crying on television.
This is what all republican traitors and rapists deserve.
It was probably more an act of stupidity under influence than a premeditated attempt at a short squeeze, but if you're wearing the CEO hat, you have less leeway for stupidity.
So, fraud charges secured.
Hardly shocking. He said he'd secured the funding for the buy, but he hadn't. Looks cut'n'dried, at least to this ignorant layman.
That will teach Musk to attack the president.
With the amount of money I have made from shorting this company, Iâ(TM)ve started naming the windfall after the idiots who have facilitated this opportunity.
And ergo don't deserve any protection.
A Musk hate thread to distract me from the Kavanaugh heardings. Well done, /. Well done.
Thinking out loud (or on the internet) is a bad idea when people have their money tied up in your decisions.
On the other hand, I do enjoy the cartoon-ish idea of stock investors frantically shifting their shares back and forth as a CEO wavers back and forth on decisions.
Fucking owned lol
I hope they try to confirm him anyway - and fail spectacularly - and are henceforth known for what they are, the party of legitimizing rape and racism. Rapepublican support for Kavanaugh is a hands-on support.
An investigation is going to happen now and God help him if he lied.
He'll pay a fine. He'd rather pay the SEC fine than let the short sellers win. Smart play by Musky.
AAl servers. CoMing
Slashdot article is wrong. It's only against Musk, not Tesla
It appears to have since been edited to correct this error. When I first loaded this article, the HTML title element was
but its headline was (with my emphasis of those words that differed)
I reloaded again and the new title also appeared as the headline. This calls to mind both of Phil Karlton's two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation and naming things.
They're just jealous because he can fuck hot godesses like Amber Heard and they can't.
It's funny how Musk gets attacked all the time for any reasons they can find. If they succeed, control of the company will be taken from him and will close shortly after. It almost looks orchestrated ... oh well. I guess this is what happens to anyone that threatens the energy status quo.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York, seeks to bar Mr. Musk from serving as an executive or director of publicly traded companies. Tesla, which Mr. Musk co-founded, is publicly traded.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
The difference : Republicans investigated and attempted impeachment over that, at great length- quite different from trying to ram-rod rapist Kavanaugh after a single day of very conflicted testimony, without any real investigation.
Republicans didn't even want anyone else to testify, in their single-day charade of "looking into it with an open mind" - sic.
Clinton's denial of intercourse a la cigar was dubious, but not quite perjury by itself. No rape charges ever credibly surfaced despite allegations. Obviously if that were credible he'd be prosecuted for it after the lengthy investigations.
If you were raped by Clinton or have evidence, please share it. I don't defend a rapist regardless of their politik - that's how I'm different from Congressional Republicans. YMMV.
(Personal note, I never voted for any Clinton, and I think his sexual conduct was very much disgraceful and unbecoming. But he WAS investigated, which is a big difference here today)
Charged by the SEC is a very different best to civil litigation. Rich people sue each other every day, it's no big deal.
Take it easy, Rei, the DOJ will be bringing criminal charges anytime now.
Agreed. In Trump's America the fact that he's building electric cars and promoting clean energy guarantees they'll throw the book at him, irrespective of the merits. They probably would have anyway, but tweeting the way Elon Musk did sure gave them a wide opening for attack. Not his smartest moment by a long shot.
volu8e of NetBSD
You can just look at Elon Musk's previous tweets and public communications to see that he tends to get excited about things and make promises or statements about them that are a bit optimistic.
I have no reason to believe what happened here was a snap decision on his part that going private would be a really good thing for Tesla in the long-haul. And when he got word that some of the folks in Saudi Arabia were about to dump serious money into investing in an EV, he made a bet they were referring to HIS company and made the statement he made.
Unfortunately, the Saudis sunk $1 billion of capital into "Lucid", a wanna-be Tesla competitor that doesn't even have a single finished product yet available to the public. It remains to be seen how that will turn out for everyone.
Wouldn't it be delicious if this derailed humanity's path to the stars long enough that we didn't make it as a species?
I honestly can't think of a worse group of folks than financial lawyers, or a better group of people than SpaceX.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
...it seemed like a bait to try get Apple to buy him out. He's getting bogged down with Tesla and really wants to liquidate and concentrate on SpaceX. Sadly for everyone it didn't work.
Seriously. They bring *nothing* to the table, and they're incentivized to shit on Tesla at every opportunity to keep the stock price down. I wish Musk would have taken it private just to spite them.
Do you have ESP?
On the one side, we have someone who could be humanity's best hope for escaping extinction.
On the other side, we have a bunch of rich assholes trying gambling that he'll fail, and expecting to pull some money out of thin air if they're right.
Part of me wants Elon to fail. We don't really deserve to spread our seed throughout the galaxy.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Charges are merely another name for accusation. YOU could be sued for fraud over Musk's statements to take Tesla private. It won't win, but it shows how meaningless "sued" is in the USA.
But, yeah, I get it, you need to sell your shorts. Truth be damned.
Jail him now. He can share a cell with Trump.
Nah, actually, I'm sticking to balogney! Quick, sue me for fraud because you lost money on Peanut Butter futures because you're a fucking dimwit!
Maybe the SEC should sue itself too?
Wouldn't it be delicious if this derailed humanity's path to the stars long enough that we didn't make it as a species?
I honestly can't think of a worse group of folks than financial lawyers, or a better group of people than SpaceX.
Here's something you people don't understand, Tesla is owned by investment funds that pool a lot of people's money. Some of it retirement money of little people.
Do you people understand that?
Those Wall Street people are working for us in the end.
Do you understand?
Elon Musk has proven himself to be a liar and unstable - possibly mentally ill or a drug addict. Outside of the Slashdot echo chamber of Musk fanboys, Investors are quite concerned about him and horrible leadership of Tesla.
This whole Shorts vs. the Longs is a delusional fantasy Musk cooked up to rally the fans and make him seem like an underdog.
Tesla is a money losing, debt ridden cash burning train wreck and it's all Musk's incompetence that caused it. I hope the SEC looks into the Solarcity deal. That has fraud written all over it. To burden Tesla and her shareholders with that failing company was incredibly dishonest. That fantasy of Tesla owners having solar cells on their roofs and charging their Teslas is not happening. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, the fanboys will discount this story as a "hit piece" because they are all just like Creationists in their denial of facts.)
If you people would stop this worship of Musk, you'd see who he truly is.
And as far as Space X is concerned, the sooner Musk is gone the better for that company.
The SEC isn't some random "rich people". It's the organization charged by the people with enforcing laws which govern investment activities and corporate governance. This is a much bigger deal than a random lawsuit.
Elon Musk is a liar and a fraud. He's gonna be ousted any day now.
I've got dry powder and it's right before the Q3 deliveries numbers ;)
Model S sales have tanked; you know the model that is much more profitable than the Model 3. Then there is all that Solarcity debt coming due.
And Tesla hasn't delivered enough 3's to make any difference.
PERIOD
FULL STOP
So the CEO of the company you invested in said something stupid? Maybe you'll learn your lesson next time. Piss off ya wankers!
*I own stock in Tesla. I'm in it for the long haul. If I lose it then oh well.
Musk will win, handily, and someone at the SEC will get fired.
A President and leader of a country has important responsibilities to citizens. "Those responsibilities include the need to be scrupulous and careful about the truth and accuracy of statements made to the..." "public, whether those statements are made in traditional forms such as a press release or an..." memo "or through less formal methods such as Twitter or other social media. Neither celebrity status nor reputation as a..." business moghoul "provide an exemption from..." laws.
Reasonable framework ya got there Steph...
Seriously, this stupid Kavanaugh hearing is asinine enough that I'd rather all the tickets were drowned in a rainbarrel.
This is a much bigger deal than a random lawsuit.
But whole premise of the lawsuit is stupid! Does the SEC really want to claim that it's illegal for a CEO to say that he might take the company private?
Would that be the SEC that enforced the laws following the financial crisis of 2008?
Remind me, how many bankers went to jail for that? Some or all of those responsible?
Remind me what law they broke? Oh mean they didn’t break any laws.
I hope Musk shuts up shop and relocates to Europe. Modern America doesn't deserve him.
You're assuming that shorts have some personal vendetta. They don't. In a story from May 17th 2017 when the stock was 310.18, Musk himself even says “I do believe this market cap is higher than we have any right to deserve.”
(Source: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/even-elon-musk-thinks-teslas-stock-is-insanely-overvalued)
A few months later Tesla went on to sell 1.8 *billion* dollars worth of bonds through Goldman Sachs.(source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/11/tesla-debt-offering-raised-to-1-point-8-billion-300-million-more-than-planned-on-high-demand.html)
Not to mention the acquisition of Solar CIty which so far hasn't provided much to the company. Musk has some big ideas, but I don't think shorts are being personal - from their perspective at this point it must just be good business?
Him taking it personally and making all the mistakes he's been making.. That's his fault. The smartest revenge would have been success.
Seriously. They bring *nothing* to the table, and they're incentivized to shit on Tesla at every opportunity to keep the stock price down. I wish Musk would have taken it private just to spite them.
Yeah, he wished that too, but the problem with Musk is that he can't keep his mouth shut.
The entire legal system needs to abandoned. Trivial and childish would be the most appropriate description.
And on this day, the TSLA shorts masturbated furiously.
Ivana did during their 1992 divorce. The courts, however, didn't charge him with anything (which is what your retort was gonna be). All you have to do is google it, but then you couldn't keep pushing your bullshit points.
If you want to know what would happen, just take a look at the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
He was impeached, but acquitted by the Senate.
I don't know how many women Clinton actually raped, let alone how many he screwed, but Trump is screwing all of us.
Elon, on the other hand, has only screwed all of the Tesla investors---both long and short. The stock price will go up and down a great deal before it settles down to where it should be.
As described, the book was appended with a statement from Ivana Trump disavowing that she intended to use the word “rape” in its commonly understood manner (i.e., forcible sex without consent):
During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me.
I wish to say that on one occasion during 1989, Mr Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage.
As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness which he normally exhibited toward me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.
Oh, you mean that rape that wasn't rape per the person who supposedly made the charge, and which even Snopes says wasn't rape? That rape?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It was the 'funding secured' lie that has Elon Musk (sounds like a Revlon perfume, doesn't it?) in trouble.
She changed her story later, probably in response to threats from Trump. And maybe she'll reveal why at some point in the future. But he clearly raped her, and you're clearly trying to make excuses for rape. That makes you rapey AF.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So Ivana recanted, no charges were pressed, and no physical evidence. Of course you believe it was rape! Just like you believe Tesla makes a profit on each car they sell! You'll believe anything as long as it validates your world-view, facts be damned! Where are the numbers that say Tesla makes a profit?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Sorry bro, but YOU guys are losing this upcoming election and likely the 2020 one as well. America is tired of not getting shit done in congress while the rich fucks continue to rob people every day. We don't need opinions and orange man bad thoughts provided by anyone. It is visibly evident. He outright admits stuff. He digs his own grave.
I didn't say it was personal - it's just business. I don't think Soros really wanted to destroy a lot of people's retirement back in the 90s, but that was the result of his actions. Yeah, not personal, but that doesn't really mean much.
Do you have ESP?
go to hell you soulless satanic son of a bitch
A colony on mars would Ensure this, Lets help with this endeavor. :)
[($)]
Musk really needs to get a president into Tesla to handle day-2-day stuff.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Waah Waah I bought TLS stock without knowing a thing about investing and now its value is going to evaporate into thin air due to its CEO. I blame the shorts who saw it coming because I can't admit I didn't have a clue.
A disappointing day for America. The SEC which is paid for by American tax payers to protect investors, is now trying to destroy their investment. In the filing it says that the lead representative of a sovereign fund had agreed to fund the go private deal on reasonable terms, Elon was going to discuss this with some Tesla investors and he thought it would be unfair to do so without announcing it publicly. However, the SEC filing is written in a way that is attacking Elon. The SEC don't want fairness or justice, they want to win, you can see them clearly avoiding a question about why they moved unusually fast to investigate Tesla.
There are so many other countries that would welcome Elon, Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City and the Boring Company without all the bureaucracy, lawyers and haters that are against innovation. No wonder all the other car companies left America.
Hang in there Elon, don't let the haters get you down. Take a break and travel a bit, you'll feel a lot better.
#BelieveVictims ... unless they say what you don't want. Then calling someone else a rapist. You are pathetic and ought to be banned from slashdot the way creimer was.
Stock holders need effective management, not criminals with impulse control problems.
That's pretty impressive. He has to be the Chuck Norris of rapists.
This morning I googled this again to see if articles had any other comments. One of the top ones that showed up on my work PC was (I forget where from) simply titled: "SEC says 420 was a pot reference." Ummm....... ok? I think most everyone already thought/assumed/knew that. Not quite sure why it was the entire subject of an article.
Don't tweet. There. That's it. Put down your phone, get some sleep, and don't tweet.
Make love, not reality television.
Wow. I can see your example is IDENTICAL! How insightful you are. Many people's financial future is obviously affected your choice of basement cuisine.
How about all the people the bought the stock on the promise of a buyout at a significant premium?
IMHO, (from all the news I read) it is clear that some people keep trying really hard to force Elon Musk out of Tesla company management! (Which would be the end of Tesla!)
I am guessing they must be the people of some other car company, trying to take down Tesla as their competitor!
I think SEC should/must not allow itself to be used by any company to attack their competitor!
If a really innovative company like Tesla ends because of SEC, it would be a historical embarrassment for SEC (and in turn US federal government) for all future times!
Nelson laugh
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If someone's financial future depends on comments on TWITter, they are dim-wit.
You generally don't start with the smallest possible action when you are planning more than one.
You tear down a man's defenses brick by brick. Winning the easy cases early on yields big dividends down the road. Lose and you learn from your mistakes. Why do you think every criminal prosecutor begins with the small fry?
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
Who is Elon Musk?