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Elon Musk isn't on his Twitter leash yet, so he's taunting the SEC
On Saturday, Elon Musk settled a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission claiming that he had violated federal securities laws by tweeting that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private. Now, days later, Musk has tweeted out a sarcastic message to the SEC:
Just want to [say] that the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work. And the name change is so on point!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2018
Musk has long waged a rhetorical war against shortsellers—investors who borrow shares of Tesla in order to profit if the price drops. Here he's suggesting that the agency—whose mission is to protect investors from CEO misconduct—is actually harming the value of Tesla's stock by enforcing securities laws against Musk and Tesla.
[...] Saturday's settlement required Musk to step down as Tesla's chairman, appoint two new independent directors, and pay a $20 million fine. The deal also requires Tesla's board to "establish a new committee of independent directors and put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk's communications." But according to Recode's Teddy Schleifer, that requirement doesn't kick in for 90 days after signing, giving Musk a few more weeks of unfettered tweeting.
[...] The stock market did not seem thrilled about Musk's latest tweet today. After falling 4.4 percent during the regular trading session, Tesla's stock price fell by another two percent in the minutes after Musk tweeted.
The judge overseeing the case has asked Tesla and the SEC to write a joint memo justifying the settlement. It's due next week. Ordinarily, this would just be a formality, but Musk's tweet is certainly not going to help the process go more smoothly.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @01:42PM (2 children)
He's probably seen the Kavanaugh hearings and Trump's antics and noticed that there's a bunch of dumb asses out there that will fall for it.
Kavanaugh is likely to be the confirmed despite completely lacking the temperament and qualifications to serve as an associate justice. He can't even get through a hearing without perjuring himself in a transparent way. And the GOP is completely fine with that, even with the fact that there are credible allegations of sexual assault that still haven't been investigated.
That should really be of great concern to anybody that understands the role of the court. Unfortunately, the GOP has spent decades chipping away at our democracy until we got to the point where elections fraud is no longer something that we care about. Having large numbers of voters disenfranchised because they're not voting the right way is A-OK for the GOP voters. Having completely incompetent judges appointed is also OK, I had hoped that they cared about at least the public image of the court, but nobody in their right mind is going to take a court seriously that has a sexual predator sitting on it.
My guess is that this is what Musk is doing counting on the numerous inbred hicks voting GOP to save him. People who think it's a good thing that Trump is deliberately destroying what's left of our democracy for personal gain, even if it craters the country in coming years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @07:18PM (1 child)
Hasn't spent enough time taking a good hard look at just how fucked up both American society and our duopolist partisan political system have become. Both parties need to be purged from the system just like they should have been ~150+ years ago when they were founded as the Democratic-Republican party.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @11:03PM
Enjoy your nap, Rip? It is now 2018, not 1942.