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Elon Musk Makes Deal With SEC Not To Discuss Tesla's Finances Without a Lawyer's Approval (cnbc.com) 110

Two months after the SEC asked a federal judge to hold Tesla CEO Elon Musk in contempt for breaking terms of a settlement agreement with a tweet, the two have reportedly reached an agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, which still needs to be approved by a judge, Musk agreed not to tweet or otherwise disseminate information about Tesla's finances, production numbers or certain other information without a lawyer's approval. CNBC reports: The late Friday agreement [...] lays out exactly what kind of information requires formal legal review before being shared. This oversight process is now required for the company's blog, statements made on investor calls, as well as social media posts for material information. [CNBC has the laundry list of items laid out in the filing included in their report.]

This superseding agreement settles a dispute between the SEC and Musk about whether the Tesla chief violated the terms of their original deal in which he had agreed to clear his tweets containing material information about the company before posting. The SEC had asserted that Musk never sought clearance for any tweet. The SEC first charged Musk last year, alleging he made fraudulent statements on Twitter. On Aug. 7, Musk tweeted that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 per share. In the first deal, Musk had also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $20 million and forfeit his role as chairman of the board for at least three years. The company also paid a $20 million fine.
"Some feared the SEC situation was not going to be resolved favorably so this resolution is a sigh of relief for the bulls. Tesla has enough bad news on its plate so this removes one headache for the Street with the focus now core demand and profitability," said Dan Ives, managing director for equity research at Wedbush Securities.
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Elon Musk Makes Deal With SEC Not To Discuss Tesla's Finances Without a Lawyer's Approval

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  • Bummer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Friday April 26, 2019 @08:33PM (#58499076) Journal
    I wanted to see what he would say about the $700MM loss from last quarter, and how it was the fault of the shorts...
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      Amazon has been losing money for like two decades now. What is your point?

      • Amazon has been mapping out and taking control of the channels in many markets for 20 years. And not really at a loss.

        Tesla is trying to create and sell cars in "new ways" for reasons nobody outside Silicon Valley can explain or justify, and taking a loss while doing so.

        Very different things.

        • Re: Bummer... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Saturday April 27, 2019 @03:20AM (#58499810) Journal

          Tesla is trying to create and sell cars in "new ways" for reasons nobody outside Silicon Valley can explain or justify, and taking a loss while doing so.

          Sometimes (often, I'd say) it takes an outsider to innovate. Everybody understands why he is doing this. Whether he'll be successful at it is a different question, but so far he's doing pretty well. And not just in the auto industry.

      • AMZN made $3 billion in profits in their last reported quarter (Q4 2018). That's a bit different than a $700MM loss, no?
    • Patience. I'm sure Rei (aka Locutus of Musk) will be along shortly.

  • Delist or (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spinitch ( 1033676 ) on Friday April 26, 2019 @08:51PM (#58499106)
    Kick Tesla off US public exchanges. Let them trade on other exchanges where investors governance less stringent. Or Elon follows SEC rules and let investor relations authorize disclosures.
    • Kick Tesla off US public exchanges. Let them trade on other exchanges where investors governance less stringent. Or Elon follows SEC rules and let investor relations authorize disclosures.

      You know, with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about global warming, you would think that people would be four-square behind Musk and Tesla.

      37% of US energy production [eia.gov] is from petroleum, almost all of that goes into gasoline. The US is one of the biggest CO2 generators for that reason.

      Tesla cars are well liked as a product, and powering them by the grid generates a lot less CO2, since 11% of the grid comes from renewables and 9% comes from nuclear. Add in rooftop solar and we could eliminate that enti

  • by Revek ( 133289 ) on Friday April 26, 2019 @08:53PM (#58499116)

    What makes him so different from all the other douches out there that he is not allowed to promote his business. I know this may seem a little simplistic but I really don't keep up with the stock market and finance anymore than I keep up with other forms forms of gambling.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You really should stay off stocks. There are rules. And no, other CEO's do not make public statements about company finance that are patently false. Going public at 420 was simply not true. And why do they not make these statements? Because CEO's CFO's and other top people at companies have inside information. So if a CEO lies about something like the 420 thing, it is likely to cause the stock to move because shareholders and investors assume the information is not a lie. Imagine if Hackett at Ford said, Th

    • by gravewax ( 4772409 ) on Friday April 26, 2019 @09:13PM (#58499164)
      He is allowed to promote his business as much as he likes. As long as, just like every other CEO, he follows the rules for information disclosure for a publically listed company. So far he has blatantly violated those rules with lies and misinformation and to be honest he is lucky to have been able to strike a deal that even allows him to remain.
    • by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Friday April 26, 2019 @09:14PM (#58499166) Journal
      Most of those other "douches" didn't commit stock fraud by lying about potential buy-outs at significant margins. And then try to defend the indefensible.
    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday April 26, 2019 @11:47PM (#58499562) Journal

      What makes him so different from all the other douches out there that he is not allowed to promote his business

      He actually seems like a cool and chill guy. A strange guy, but what rocket builder isn't?

  • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Friday April 26, 2019 @09:33PM (#58499216)
    The next lawyer Musk will need approval from will be a bankruptcy attorney.
    • Wow. Haven't heard that every month for the past 10 years, no siree.

  • Especially for those who use the net to make $.

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