Tesla Says Justice Department, SEC Are Investigating Model 3 Production Targets (cnbc.com)

Tesla said in a regulatory filing Friday that the SEC and Justice Department are investigating their Model 3 production projections to see if they misled investors. CNBC reports: The filing confirms much of an Oct. 26 article in The Wall Street Journal that said FBI agents were looking at whether Tesla misled investors about production of its Model 3 sedans. The FBI is the principal investigative arm of the Justice Department. The SEC, which just settled its securities fraud investigation against CEO Elon Musk and the company, has separately subpoenaed Tesla for Musk's statements about production rates regarding its popular Model 3 sedan, the company said. DOJ prosecutors have also asked for the same information, although it stopped short of issuing a formal subpoena, the company said in a filing with the SEC. In an interview with Recode's Kara Swisher, Elon Musk denied the validity of the WSJ article.

"The amount of untruthful stuff that is written is unbelievable. Take that Wall Street Journal front-page article about, like, 'The FBI is closing in.' That is utterly false. That's absurd," Musk told Swisher. "To print such a falsehood on the front page of a major newspaper is outrageous. Like, why are they even journalists? They're terrible. Terrible people."

Comments

AIUI it's about production figures not forecasts

[gman003]

As I understand it, the problem under investigation is not "Tesla forecast they'd make X many but only made Y". Failure to predict the future is not illegal, and even being overly optimistic in your shareholder forecasts isn't a crime. As long as they weren't egregiously bullshitting when they made that public, they'd be good.

The area under investigation is the actual production numbers. Tesla shorts have latched onto a pretty bonkers theory that Tesla was somehow falsifying their production numbers - fake VINs, or delivering known-defective vehicles to count them as "delivered" even though they'd need to be replaced. Some of it is quibbling over the definition of "delivered" - is something sent to a dealer counted as a "delivery" or does that only count when someone buys it? - made worse by Tesla not using independent-ish dealerships, but rather their own stores.

I personally don't think there's a case here. Musk makes schedules he can't keep, and promises features he can't deliver, but he really doesn't lie about accomplishments. Especially not ones that are so easily verified - the FBI will have a pretty easy time finding out if VINs are being misallocated, so the investigation should be pretty short.

Re:Journalists are getting themselves extinct

[rtb61]

What is interesting about the Tesla beat up, focus on the cars, ignore the solar panels, batteries and controllers, they do not exist, shh (where the majority of money will come from in Tesla future, not high end cars which was always a limited market but home power systems where it has a big yet to be exploited edge). It seems the real target is those home energy systems, getting them off the market before more damage is done to the fossil fuellers. Lobbyists are continuing to fund government corporate appointees controlling government agencies on behalf of hedge fund managers buried up to the eyeballs in fossil fuels.

Home power system, distributed energy networks, where the power stations have already been built, your home and only need the generators, solar panels and batteries, system that generate a surplus and feed, medium and high density residential as well as commercial, you even maintain the system for them and they pay you for your excess electricity. Check the return on solar power, compared to what you nobodies can generate in bank interest on your capital. When you don't pay for electricity, you get to keep that income, you panels generate a far better return than bank interest payments and they self adjust to inflation and you pay ZERO TAX on the return, woo hoo. You can see why Tesla must die.