SEC asks Federal Judge to hold Elon Musk in Contempt.

[mmcartalk]

SEC asks Federal Judge to hold Elon Musk in Contempt.
Here's the latest act in the Elon-Musk-vs.-the Government circus....a request by the SEC to hold Musk in contempt for a tweet that they say violates the settlement-order not to tweet things that could potentially affect the Tesla market. I won't take a position on it myself as IMO there seems to be truth on both sides, but you all can decide if the contempt-citation is justified or not.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...ttlement-deal/

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday asked a federal judge to hold Tesla CEO Elon Musk in contempt for violating the terms of a recent settlement agreement that required preapproval of any potentially market-moving tweets about the car company.

On Feb. 19, Musk tweeted that the company would make around 500,000 cars this year. Four hours later, he tweeted again that he “meant to say” the cars’ weekly production rate would equal up to about 500,000 on an annual basis but that the total car deliveries this year would be closer to around 400,000.

The next day, the SEC asked the company whether the tweets had been reviewed before being published. The first tweet had not been preapproved, the company said. Instead, Tesla’s attorney’s saw the tweet after it was published and then reached out Musk to draft a second, corrective tweet, the SEC said.

“As a result of his failure to comply with the [settlement, Musk] once again published inaccurate and material information about Tesla to his over 24 million Twitter followers,” the SEC said.

A Tesla spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Last September, Musk reached a $20 million settlement with the SEC, which had accused him of lying to investors when he tweeted that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private. As part of the settlement, Tesla agreed to review Musk’s market-moving tweets and public statements before he published them.

But according to the SEC, that didn’t happen. “The provision of the Court’s Final Judgment requiring Musk to obtain pre-approval before publishing written statements containing material information about Tesla is clear and unambiguous,” the SEC said in its c

 

[Ian Schmidt]

Musk as I type this is live on Twitter "like"ing posts mocking the SEC, so clearly he's afraid of whatever punishment

 

[Ian Schmidt]

And Tesla's now announced they're only going to sell online now. Most stores will close, some others will be converted to service-only. A lot of employees found out they were losing their jobs by watching a stream of Musk making the announcement, which is kind of crappy.

 

[flexus]

And Tesla's now announced they're only going to sell online now. Most stores will close, some others will be converted to service-only. A lot of employees found out they were losing their jobs by watching a stream of Musk making the announcement, which is kind of crappy.

I think Tesla won't ever grow to a huge manufacturer. When traditional car companies start to produce EV:s in full capacity Tesla will be left behind. EVs aren't profitable yet. There is no demand for Tesla in outside the US. It is very "American brand" I can't explain in English but Musk's philosophy is much different than Asians or Europeans. In fact, there is virtually no demand for Tesla outside the US (maybe in China). In Japan Tesla Model 3 will be available this year but so far I have seen only one or two articles about it. Meanwhile, Leaf e-plus has made media crazy in Japan. I have seen many articles about it being perfect EV since you don't have to worry about battery drain (range: 570km JC08 mode). Also having 220hp it's basically hot hatch with a luxurious interior. I think we could see sales around 30000-40000 this year.
Also in Europe Tesla hasn't performed well. In January Tesla hadn't singe model on top 20 EVs and PHEVs. For contrast 20th most sold EV/PHEV was Audi e-Tron with 431 cars shipped to customers. I think this year Leaf and Zoe which got bigger batteries and newcomers like Kona and 208e will rule the market alongside
german PHEVs.
Still, Tesla has its niche and their technology is better than anyone else. It's interesting to see when markets get real Tesla competitor: high-performance EV sedan (Taycan? Polestar 2?). Or how much FCVs will eat market share from traditional BEVs in say next 5-10 years.

 

[Ian Schmidt]

Right, Tesla's drivetrain has been great from the get-go. Attaching it to the Lotus Elise for the original Roadster was accidental genius, because the rest of the car was as good as the Tesla drivetrain. None of the 3 Tesla models they've designed themselves have lived up to that combination, but I imagine the Taycan will.

I know some DIY guys have successfully mated the Tesla drivetrain to the Quattro system in, I think, an A6. That's probably pretty something to drive too, but obviously not mass-market.

 

[mmcartalk]

And Tesla's now announced they're only going to sell online now. Most stores will close, some others will be converted to service-only. A lot of employees found out they were losing their jobs by watching a stream of Musk making the announcement, which is kind of crappy.

Normally I'm against excessive bean-counting at auto firms, but in all fairness, Tesla needed to do something. With the system of company-owned stores they had (which has never worked in the history of auto-manufacturing), they had simply bitten off more than they could chew in costs. It was killing them.

What they should have done, IMO, is simply gone with conventional privately-owned dealer-franchises, which do the actual vehicle-ordering and absorb all of the other non-warranty-related costs so the factory doesn't have to. It would also have saved them a lot of litigation in states that frown on company-owned retail outlets for autos.

 

[Motor]

I know some DIY guys have successfully mated the Tesla drivetrain to the Quattro system in, I think, an A6.

Are you talking about this pet project?

 

[Ian Schmidt]

Yup, that's the one.