The situation is escalating between the richest man in the world and one of the main regulators of the manufacturer of high-end electric vehicles.
Elon Musk is known to be unpredictable. Taking the opposite view of his interlocutors has thus become one of his trademarks.
He is where we least expect him. He settles his accounts with his critics on his Twitter account without sparing them.
Investors or short-sellers who bet on Tesla’s (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc Report stock market crash, like hedge fund heavyweight David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, are its regular victims.
Recently, it was Democratic President Joe Biden that he called a “damp sock puppet” because he snubbed him.
‘I Will Finish It’
But his vindictiveness and his most violent blows he gives them in recent days to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The billionaire and the SEC have been at it since the summer of 2018 and the famous TweetGate affair.
Their relationship has been marked by tension and mistrust over the past four years, but it always comes back to TweetGate. Musk still seems to have not digested this resounding affair which forced him to abandon the chairmanship of Tesla and pay a fine of $20 million to the SEC.
To a user and fan who suggested on the social network Twitter on Wednesday that Musk’s recent accusations against the regulator were undoubtedly due to the fact that the boss of Tesla was in the process of building a case against the SEC, the answer was clear and direct.
“What if @elonmusk, #TSLA has been baiting the SEC for years, building their case on the level or corruption & now they have enough evidence to go public with it all? Grab your popcorn folks!”
“Building a case is exactly what I’ve been doing,” supported Musk without providing evidence to support his point.
When another user bounced off their answer by pointing out that “Starting a fight with the SEC is not a great look,” Musk wanted to be unambiguous.
“I didn’t start the fight, but I will finish it,” the billionaire concluded.
Taking Tesla Private
Musk reignited hostilities with the SEC, on Feb. 17.
He accused the regulator of targeting both him and Tesla in an ‘unrelenting’ investigation aimed at limiting his right to free speech. Musk also said that the SEC had neglected their duties to remit $40 million to shareholders that Tesla and Musk previously paid in fines to settle securities fraud charges.
The SEC, through its attorney, responded the next day to Musk. Steven Buchholz, the SEC attorney, said the agency was actually making progress on the task of disbursing the $40 million to shareholders.
But on Monday Musk accused the SEC of leaking information to harm him. In a letter addressed to the New York judge Alison Nathan by his lawyer, Alex Spiro, the richest man in the world alleges that these leaks, which intervene within the framework of an investigation by the federal agency on Tesla, are reprisals following recent criticisms that he made against the SEC.
“This leak is emblematic of the vindictive, improper conduct that occasioned my letter: the SEC is retaliating against Mr. Musk and Tesla, without answering to the constraints of principle or law in so doing,” Spiro wrote.
The Tweetgate affair started on Aug. 7, 2018, with this post by Musk on his Twitter account: “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.”
The tweet shook Tesla stock. The SEC filed a complaint against Musk.
A settlement was reached and announced on Sept. 29, 2018. It required Musk to step down as Tesla’s chairman. Tesla and Musk agreed to pay $40 million in penalties. Tesla also agreed to have the company’s lawyers preapprove tweets with material information about the company.
Two new independent directors were appointed.
But Tesla disclosed in a Feb. 7 regulatory filing that it has received a subpoena from the SEC in last November, requesting information related to the settlement, which mandated that the company vet Musk’s tweets on information that could weigh on the stock.
