SEC cites Musk for ‘stunning’ disrespect
Pre-approvals? Elon Musk don’t need no stinking pre-approvals!
Tesla’s bad-boy boss — displaying a “stunning” lack of respect for the feds — never sought the OK for even one of his tweets about the company since striking a court-approved deal with US regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission told a judge late Monday.
The watchdog is doubling down on its demand that the government find Musk in contempt of an October fraud settlement over his misleading tweet about having secured funds to take Tesla private at $420 a share.
Musk didn’t have the money, and was forced by the SEC to give up his chairman role for three years, pay a $20 million fine and stop tweeting about Tesla’s business without a lawyer’s approval.
But on Feb. 19, Musk unleashed a tweet to his 24 million followers claiming the electric-car maker would build around 500,000 cars in 2019 — “a blatant violation” of the agreement, according to the feds.
The SEC, helmed by Chairman Jay Clayton, asked Tesla in late February whether any of Musk’s tweets had been pre-approved since that policy was adopted, according to the filing in federal court in Manhattan.
Tesla responded, after more than two weeks, to say simply: “No.”
“It is therefore stunning to learn that, at the time of filing of the instant motion, Musk had not sought pre-approval for a single one of the numerous tweets about Tesla he published in the months since the court-ordered pre-approval policy went into effect,” the SEC said in the new filing.
Reps for Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Tesla shares fell $2.02, to $267.47.