Here's the text of the letter I sent to my representative. Permission is granted to use it, although you'll presumably want to address it to your own representative.
Dear Congressman [whoever],
Re: SEC investigation of Elon Musk and Tesla, Inc, and failure to investigate market manipulation.
I write to you because I have reported matters to the SEC before and seen no subsequent action.
I am admittedly an admirer of Elon Musk and his companies Tesla and SpaceX. I am also a long term investor in Tesla.
The Securities and Exchange Commission investigated Elon Musk, Tesla’s Chairman and CEO, over his well publicized tweet that he wanted to de-list Tesla from the stock market, including the words “funding secured”. Various short sellers complained to the SEC or sued individually claiming that those words were fraudulent. I have met Mr. Musk a number of times, and I’m quite certain that there was no fraudulent intent, and what he meant was that he was extremely confident that finding sufficient funding would not be a problem. Indeed, his tweet was in reaction to the news that the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which he had spoken to about taking Tesla private, had just announced taking a 5% stake in Tesla on the open market. As he subsequently explained, he felt he had to make a public announcement of his plan so that he could talk to other major investors fairly. Short sellers, betting against the company, complained to the SEC that they lost money because the stock price went up after his tweet. However over the next few days and weeks after the SEC announced their investigation the stock price dropped over 25%, so the short investors were not actually harmed at all. Investors like me were. The plans to take Tesla private were shelved, but not because funding was unavailable, and Musk and Tesla settled with the SEC to put the affair behind them.
I believe that the recent SEC investigation of Elon Musk and Tesla was ill-conceived, and the SEC lawsuit and settlement, coming suspiciously on the last day of the federal financial year, was unjustifiable. The complaint was mostly on behalf of short sellers, who made out like bandits as soon as the SEC announced their investigation of Musk's tweet. Many of these analysts and short sellers seem to be funded by entrenched interests in the fossil fuel and automotive industries. Their biases are easy to see. An excellent article was recently written:
A Field Guide To Potential Securities Violations By Tesla's Foes — In Depth | CleanTechnica
(I have nothing to do with this article.) I did lodge SEC complaints about some of the incidents mentioned in this article, where they seemed blatant. The SEC has not acted on any of my complaints as far as I can tell, or even acknowledged my submissions. I know of others who have also complained.
I was about to write this letter to you when, today, a particularly blatant stock manipulation happened.
Recently Tesla reported excellent production numbers, positive cash flow, and a significant quarterly profit. The stock price has risen against the market by 15-20% since that report, although it still isn’t back to the level it attained before the Saudi investment. Today, at 2pm EDT, the Wall Street Journal released this article:
Tesla Faces Deepening Criminal Probe Over Whether It Misstated Production Figures
Tesla's stock price dropped 7% in a couple of minutes. But this article contains no new information, citing only "people familiar with the matter" (who would be committing criminal acts if they really do know and reveal anything about the status of a DOJ investigation). It refers to a matter that is over a year old today.
I believe this article constitutes illegal market manipulation, intended to stop Tesla's rising stock trajectory and manipulate the stock price closer to the option "Maximum Pain" point for options expiring two hours after the publication. In the "field guide" article above you will find that many of the incidents trace back to reporters at the Wall Street Journal.
I had Tesla call options expiring today, which were in-the-money, so that fall from $335 to $314 cost me $6,300, on those options alone; across my portfolio of Tesla stock and options the loss was closer to $100,000.
As my representative, I believe one of your responsibilities is to represent me when I have a problem with a federal agency and no other means to pursue the matter. I think the SEC has:
1. Acted irresponsibly in its actions regarding the “funding secured” tweet,
2. Failed to act or investigate in other, reported, incidents that appear to involve major wrongdoing,
3. Failed to acknowledge complaints from me and others.
I would appreciate your attention to not only this specific incident but also to the apparent lack of SEC action in respect of Tesla's and Musk's enemies. I request that you contact the SEC on my behalf, to ask their justification for investigating Musk on behalf of short sellers who benefitted from harming the company, to ask why they fail to investigate other reported matters, and ask that they do investigate this most recent event. I did report the Wall Street Journal article using the SEC web form, and also by email to the Ombudsman of the SEC. I have acknowledgement of receipt from the Ombudsman, but not from the web submission.
Sincerely,
