Elon Musk Continues To Amuse Himself On Twitter, Sharing Song, Duck Emoji (billboard.com)

Yesterday Billboard magazine reported that Elon Musk had dropped a rap song on SoundCloud -- an auto-tuned song called "RIP Harambe." Posted under the handle Emo G Records, the two-minute track pays tribute to the Cincinnati Zoo gorilla who was killed in 2016 after a 3-year-old climbed into its living area. It's unclear if Musk stumbled upon the track, which has his name on it, or if he released the track himself...

"RIP Harambe" had more than 200,000 plays as of Sunday afternoon.
Some Twitter users left bemused replies, like "Dude, sober up by Thursday's contempt hearing." But the song appears to be part of a longer series of tweets. An anonymous reader writes: On Friday Musk had shared a blank tweet containing nothing but an emoji of a duck with his 25.5 million followers. It drew over 24,000 re-tweets, and 4,300 comments -- far more than the Harambe song (which drew only 14,000 retweets and 1,600 comments.) "Duck emoji FTW," Musk tweeted triumphantly on Sunday, following up on his earlier observation that "Duck emoji defeats Emo G Records. Crushing victory."
In its comments there was also a joke about X.com (the original online banking site Musk launched in 1999, which was eventually merged into PayPal). In 2017 Musk repurchased the domain because "it has great sentimental value" -- but replaced it with an entirely blank page with one lowercase x. In response to the duck emoji, someone tweeted that next Musk needed to update X.com.

Musk promptly replied by tweeting the URL x.com/x -- which (due to the site's error-handling) pulls up a web page with a single lowercase y.

Comments

Great gag

[alvinrod]

I really like the early April Fool's joke where Slashdot is pretending to be TMZ. Most excellent!

Re:Fuck this.

[uncqual]

Empirical evidence suggests you paid more than zero attention to this.

Nice to see people just not G.A.F.

[Crashmarik]

I remember all too well when no one gave a fuck on the internet. You have to wonder what happened to kids that someone shoved sticks up their asses.

Re:Nice to see people just not G.A.F.

[rtb61]

Corporate main stream media, the deep state and the shadow government are playing divide and conquer. When you look at those information sources, you wonder what the fuck is going on because you see none of it around you, yet it is continuously on corporate main stream media. Only the odd and I mean odd, not just occasional, individuals you know are into this, yet corporate main stream media and establishment politicians broadcast it like it is every where.

I mean seriously this story, we all complain when corporate try to silence their employees on social media, turning a job, into indentured servitude where you thoughts and conversations are to be controlled by the corporation that pays your salary, that owns you. Same should hold for executives, their social media conversations are social media conversations just like everyone else. Real name, real identity social media is just extremely problematic and needs to be held accountable.

Not sure what this really means

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

This quarter 19Q1 does not seem to be as critical as the 18Q2 where the cash position turned very precarious. This quarter had unexpectedly long delays in getting euro transition and certiticates, Some China deliveries. Guidance changed from "profitable in all following quarters" (18Q4) to "small loss" (Jan 2019) to "definite loss" (Feb 2019). Share prices are reacting to that.

SEC contempt case is not strong. "Must pre screen all tweets" was the original demand, it was redlined and negotiated and taken out. So it is clear Tesla never agreed to pre screen ALL tweets. SEC seems to be under the impression there should be a standing panel with some board members and appointees to screen the tweets. Tesla seems to be thinking, if Elon agrees not to treat anything material, not tweet anything during trading hours, there is no need to pre screen, just a post screen to issue clarification before trading resumes.

The particular tweet seems to be very immaterial, not much to hang its coat on. If this is the most material breach they have found, SEC has nothing. Looks like it is just a pretext to show that there is no standing panel, no real process to pre screen tweets. Court can rule for either party, but not likely to punish Tesla much. Elon has not made a market moving tweet since funding secured. So SEC got what it wanted.

Re:Not sure what this really means

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The free market disagrees with you. It caused absolutely no movement in the stock, either in the after market fueled by rumors alone, or the next day. Anyway, these numbers were hinted in many statements before. The dispute is 500K in 2019 or 500 K/yr rate in 2019. The tweet went through and a clarification was also issued. It is not material.

Re:Not sure what this really means

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

SEC moved for a ruling without a hearing. And lost. It is not some open and shut case the press has been reporting. Tesla's sur-reply was super good. SEC was expanding and was introducing elements not mentioned in the first round.

Re:Not sure what this really means

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Due to the existing settlement, Tesla had an obligation to police Musk's communications, regardless of the effect of the communication on the stock price and regardless of who else might have said the same thing.

That is the stand of SEC, and it looked like an open and shut case. He tweeted. There is no policing. Case closed.

But the agreement had an out for Elon. Only material tweets need to be policed. And SEC argued how will you know it is material or not, so you need policing. But that means all his tweets must be policed. Specifically that point was removed from the agreement. So SEC had agreed Elon has some discretion to decide whether or not a tweet is material. He need not ask for clearance if he believed, and there was reason to believe, the tweet is not material. The number 500K as well as 500 k/year numbers were already in the 2018Q4 quarterly report and guidance. So he had the reason to believe it was not material. It is not an easy case SEC thought it would be. The judge dismissed its motion for a judgement without trial.

Re:Not sure what this really means

[larryjoe]

SEC moved for a ruling without a hearing. And lost. It is not some open and shut case the press has been reporting. Tesla's sur-reply was super good. SEC was expanding and was introducing elements not mentioned in the first round.

I can't find any article that says that the judge denied an SEC motion to forego a hearing. Rather, I see many articles saying that the judge called for both sides to request an evidentiary hearing by March 26 and that both sides decided to forego the evidentiary hearing.

The key point of contention is the interpretation of the settlement point that Tesla "put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk’s communications". Tesla interprets that to mean that it has full discretion in interpreting what those controls and procedures should mean and implicitly when they apply. The SEC claims that there is no indication that such controls and procedures exist.

Re:Not sure what this really means

[larryjoe]

Due to the existing settlement, Tesla had an obligation to police Musk's communications, regardless of the effect of the communication on the stock price and regardless of who else might have said the same thing.

That is the stand of SEC, and it looked like an open and shut case. He tweeted. There is no policing. Case closed.

But the agreement had an out for Elon. Only material tweets need to be policed. And SEC argued how will you know it is material or not, so you need policing. But that means all his tweets must be policed. Specifically that point was removed from the agreement. So SEC had agreed Elon has some discretion to decide whether or not a tweet is material. He need not ask for clearance if he believed, and there was reason to believe, the tweet is not material. The number 500K as well as 500 k/year numbers were already in the 2018Q4 quarterly report and guidance. So he had the reason to believe it was not material. It is not an easy case SEC thought it would be. The judge dismissed its motion for a judgement without trial.

I don't think either side is arguing that Musk has discretion. Rather, Musk's lawyers argue that Tesla has discretion, and it's Tesla's discretion has protects Musk's tweets. The SEC argues that there is no evidence that Tesla has exercised discretion. The SEC settlement is with Tesla, and therefore, it's Tesla that needs to uphold the terms of the settlement.

If the number 500k were in the quarterly report as the expected target, there would be no problem. The Q4 report said 360 to 400k. Then in the earnings call, Musk said that Tesla would "produce maybe on the order of 350,000 to 500,000 Model 3s, something like that this year." Musk's subsequent tweet said that Tesla "will make around 500K" cars in 2019. That's not a reiteration of public information, as a narrowing of a predicted range toward the upper portion is sufficiently material that most companies would release a PR statement.

Finally, as far as I can tell from googled news articles, the judge did not deny an SEC request for judgment without trial but rather asked for requests for an evidentiary hearing, which both sides decided to forego. But maybe I missed that article. Is there a link to such an article about the judge denying an SEC request?

Re:Not sure what this really means

[AmiMoJo]

I doubt the argument that production numbers didn't seem "material" will fly in court. They are one of the basic metrics for any manufacturing company.

Tesla death watch, sneak post view

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Meanwhile the fans are planning a Eleventh Tesla Death Anniversary Celebration. The link has all the previous predictions of death of tesla. Interesting chronology.