Regulators are trying to get Elon Musk to run his tweets by lawyers. It's not working.
What can the Securities and Exchange Commission really do to stop the Tesla chief's market-moving tweets?
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TESLA CEO Elon Musk got into hot water with regulators back in 2018 for infamously tweeting about taking the company private at a nice round stock price of US$420. Their censure hasn't stopped his tweets.
Despite being fined US$40 million, losing his Tesla chairmanship, and being ordered to run tweets by Tesla's lawyers, Mr Musk continued to tweet things that moved his company's stock price without conferring with the company's counsel, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
On the evening of July 29, 2019, he tweeted about Tesla's solar roof production, which sent the stock up about 3 per cent at market close the following day. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) told Tesla that the tweet should have been vetted by Tesla's lawyers since it regarded "production numbers or sales or delivery numbers," according to records obtained by the Journal. Tesla countered that Mr Musk didn't have to submit the tweet for review because it was "wholly aspirational".
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