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Tesla and CEO Elon Musk will pay $40 million to settle SEC case
Tesla and Chief Executive Elon Musk have settled a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that alleged the outspoken businessman misled investors about his prospective effort to take the electric-car company private.
Musk and the Palo Alto company agreed to pay a total of $40 million, and he will give up his chairmanship for at least three years. Musk, however, will remain chief executive and retain a seat on the company's board of directors. Tesla, meanwhile, is required to install an independent chairman and add two new board members, according to terms of the settlement, which the SEC announced Saturday.
Musk and Tesla will each pay $20 million to settle the case; both reached the deal without admitting wrongdoing. The company declined to comment.
The SEC charged Musk with fraud Thursday, alleging that his tweets about taking Tesla private — at $420 a share — were "false and misleading." As part of the lawsuit, it asked a federal court to remove him from the company's leadership and ban him from running a public company.
Also at Reuters.
SEC Settlement announcement.
Previously: Elon Musk Considers Taking Tesla Private
Elon Musk Accused by SEC of Misleading Investors in August Tweet [Updated]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Blymie on Sunday September 30 2018, @12:34PM (4 children)
Amusingly, it's almost a plus for Musk. The guy's overworked as it is. Now he has one less job, but retains day-to-day regardless.
$40 million is nothing. Tesla has billions in the bank, so does Musk.
"had $2.2 billion in cash on hand at the end of the second quarter," -- refers to Tesla in the article above.
I'm sure he's going to stack the board with people he can trust, and an independent? Sure, independent now -- but he still gets to decide *who*.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 30 2018, @03:04PM (3 children)
This stupid rhetoric needs to die.
It doesn't matter that Tesla/Musk have a lot more where that came from. It's still the case that $20 million represents a shitload of possibilities, and those possibilities are now not in the hands of creative, wealth-producing people like Musk and the people of Tesla, but rather in the hands of... whom exactly? Nobody interesting, that's for fucking sure.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday September 30 2018, @04:23PM
Looks to me like those possibilities just left the hands of a blabbermouth who can't appropriately filter his materially significant musings from his public announcements. It might slow him down enough to focus his creative energies on something besides frothing up the markets who hang on his every word to attempt to speculate future movements. If I worked for Musk and I "leaked" news like that to the press, I'd be hanged, drawn and quartered by the SEC - or at least as near as they could come. Those same rules also apply to the man doing the waffling, just as much as his minions who are charged with keeping confidential information confidential until it is at a state suitable for public announcement.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 30 2018, @05:05PM
Do you understand why we have traffic tickets? Why some people go to jail?
Of course you don't, you are a brain dead Vogon, errr what is the Earth term again? Oh ya, Libertarian. Evolve already.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday September 30 2018, @05:41PM
Having hung out with the rich for a while, I'd say about a quarter of the rich are total assholes, and another quarter are feeble minded enough to go along with their asshole peers. Another quarter are not so bad, actually have hearts, but they also have this "White Man's Burden" complex that has them thinking the rest of us are a bunch of helpless babies. Ironic that many of the rich are the helpless ones, like dogs helpless to stop eating as long as there's more dog food within reach. You can't let them have all the food they want or they'll eat themselves to death.
It's all a game to the assholes, and they think they're super killer winner predators. Just look at Trump for an example. They do not appreciate or care to know who gets hurt when they pull off another heist and steal another fortune through a bit of insider trading, or by bribing lawmakers to pass yet another tax cut for them, or cut them a sweetheart deal. At heart, they're petty little corrupt weasels, and they enjoy corrupting others into being no better than them, and breaking rules and getting away with it. They're great at rationalizing, saying contemptuous crap like that the little people are morons who would just waste the money anyway. Musk is an exception, but even people like him are not immune to the corruption. Some kind of punishment is not only just, but necessary to remind him and his rich peers that they are not above the law. He made a mistake, and it's best for everyone that he not get away with it.
And you worship them as "creative wealth-producing people"?? THAT is why America is going to the dogs. That attitude is way too generous and blind to their faults. Is it your life ambition to be a rich man's poodle?