US federal agency asks judge to hold Elon Musk in contempt of court - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/25/sec-tesla-elon-musk-1186391 The Securities and Exchange Commission asked a federal judge on Monday to hold Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk in contempt of court, saying he has violated the terms of a settlement with the agency, according to a filing. In a September deal with the SEC, Musk agreed to restrictions on his social media posts after he posted what the regulator said was misleading information about the electric car manufacturer. But Musk has recently “published inaccurate and material information about Tesla to his over 24 million Twitter followers, including members of the press, and made this inaccurate information available to anyone with Internet access,” the SEC said in its filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. "The SEC respectfully requests that the Court enter an order to show cause why Defendant Elon Musk should not be held in contempt," the agency said. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tweets in question: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1098013283372589056?s=19 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1098080063801585664?s=19

Fuuucks sake Elon. So he's essentially gonna get banned for reason "Can't follow simple instructions"

What did you expect when he called out someone a pedophile and then ask him to sue him over twitter

what about all the misleading stuff Trump says to further interests in various businesses? I find it weird that elon's tweets hold more merit than tesla's press releases, all because some people who failed to short/insider sell Tesla shares convinced the SEC to hammer them.

Elon doesn't seem to think so: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1100215984713957376?s=19 From the NYT article: Tesla’s lawyers acknowledged in a letter to the S.E.C. on Friday that Mr. Musk’s tweets had not been reviewed before they were posted. They argued that he had believed that “the substance” of his post “had already been appropriately vetted, preapproved and publicly disseminated.” In the fourth-quarter earnings report released on Jan. 30, Tesla said it was “targeting annualized Model 3 output in excess of 500,000 units sometime between Q4 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020.” But in a motion filed Monday with Federal District Court in Manhattan, the S.E.C. said Mr. Musk had “violated the court’s final judgment by engaging in the very conduct that the preapproval provision of the final judgment was designed to prevent.” It added that Mr. Musk’s tweet about producing 500,000 cars this year “was inaccurate and disseminated to over 24 million people” — the number of followers Mr. Musk had on Twitter at the time.

As much as I despise Jeff Bezos, and to a lesser extent, Elon, this is pretty clearly the Trump admin attacking the influential billionaires/millionaires that don't play ball. Both Bezos and Musk have been at least somewhat critical of Trump, and both men have now seen themselves get pretty obviously singled out. They shouldn't be able to get away with the shit they pull, but the admin can't just bring the people they dislike to justice, and ignore the crimes of all other wealthy figures.

Virtually all of Trump’s businesses are privately owned by him and his family. Tesla, on the other hand, is publicly traded. Because Elon Musk is essentially the visionary and also a major authority behind Tesla, anything that Musk says in regards to Tesla will be material information for investors. Press releases have influence, but sometimes the information within them is immaterial, diluted or untimely. If Elon states in a tweet that he expects Tesla to push out so many units in a period of time, investors will use that to gauge their expectations of Tesla’s earnings capacity, and therefore the share value. Elon did it in the past when he claimed he had “funding secured” for a share buyout, which caused the share price to jump, before it was revealed he was talking shit. That’s the exact kind of situation where insider trading can happen. A big no-no. Can also cause losses for many investors. When Elon states that Tesla will make around 500,000 cars in 2019, that can have a similar effect. It has nothing to do with the SEC sucking up to people who short Tesla. It’s all about good corporate governance, which Elon Musk really doesn’t seem to comprehend.

that doesn't really have any bearing here, musk got himself on potential stock manipulation charges by announcing one day he was taking the company private. The SEC has been developing some pretty strict rules regarding dissemination of information over social media and many of these tech ceos have fallen foul of them like the netflix ceo, its just musk took it a step further and went and said something that wildly affected his company's stock and then double and triple downed on it before the sec brought the full weight of their authority

While there is some merit to acknowledging that Twitter posts by Elon Musk can be judged as "trading information" Elon Musk did not post anything that hadn't already been released by their quarterly reports. SEC is grabbing at straws here, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had a different agenda than just defending the day traders. If this actually goes through, Elon Musk should fight it, as he isn't in the wrong here.

I wasn't arguing that Musk shouldn't face penalties for it, I'm just throwing it out there that this is pretty blatantly a case of the current government targeting select individuals; it's very fascist and shouldn't be blindly accepted even if the individuals targeted do deserve it. People need to demand that all wealthy and influential people face the same penalties, not just those that get on the bad side of whatever government is in power.

except its not, musk is the ceo of his company and has a huge amount of shares, the sec has very strict rules regarding release of information, he broke them, and then agreed to have any future tweets regarding his company approved by the company first, then broke that agreement again. Ya I get where you're going, that trump hs wanted to use the government to target individuals but in this specific case that isn't true.

Yeah there's nothing really Trump related here. It's gonna hinge on whether or not a judge thinks it's fair that Elon thought approval over similar statements carried over to the tweets. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1100371207491248128?s=19 Now theoretically you can end up with a anti-EV/Climate Change judge that throws the book at Musk for this and forcibly removes him from Tesla, which would be extremely damaging to the company.

there are several companies that have been guilty of insider trading recently/breaking of SEC rules (something something Equifax) -- but Elon's tweets are what raises the SEC's eyebrow?

The Securities and Exchange Commission doesn't care about the President, that's not their lane. That's up to the FBI. The SEC is concerned with Elon's tweets because they ordered him to have his statements screened after the "funding secured" thing. The reason they're upset now is because they believe him to be in breach of the agreement made and are referring it to a judge. If someone and the SEC made an agreement and that someone allegedly breaks that agreement, they're gonna refer them to a judge. The SEC can do more than one thing at a time. It's not like the whole Commission is watching Elon's tweets now. I suspect the judge may throw it out but it's not like the SEC isn't going to hold Musk to their agreement.

The SEC's letter asking WTF is up with these tweets is dated the same day that Tesla's general counsel resigned from the company. Coincidence?

I'm talking pre-agreement, when the whole thing started in response to some very rich people failing to illegally shortsell