Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Freder Reeve]

Tesla’s tweet makes zero sense

FWIW my order confirmation last night had a couple glitches on the image, I thought nothing of it at the time. I think they probably did get a flood of last minutes to midnight orders, especially if even a scrub like me ordered one.

 

[schonelucht]

So is this Tesla sharing with the world that demand is "off the hook"?

Which makes me think that the release of the Y could actually have been to reduce demand on the Model 3...

No. It's just Tesla using the old used car sales tactic. There was no particular malfunction on the website last night at all.

 

[aubreymcfato]

Q1 will become the best quarter in history for Norway tomorrow morning.

Nope.
It already did.

EDIT: sorry, you're right. Best quarter tomorrow, but March is already the best month ever.

 

[scaesare]

great, can you point me to that statement?

Dude, he just did in the post you responded to.

 

[ReflexFunds]

I'll sign on. I believe you have to sue the individual officials, not the SEC.

(The legal concept is that the sovereign government itself can do no wrong, but the individuals can abuse their power and do things which the government does not authorize them to do; for instance, they are not authorized to lie and commit fraud in court filings. They are taking actions *under the color of law*, but they are not actually taking actions which are within their legal power; they get sued in their individual capacity.)

The key premise of the SEC's case against Elon over the original take private tweet was that Elon's choice of wording was reckless given the early stage of the process. M&A announcements should also have also been sent first to Nasdaq, but that was only a minor issue - the SEC's real problem was Elon said "funding secured" rather than "I have verbal investor support".

So it truly is incredible that the SEC would either fraudulently or recklessly negligently misquote Elon's wording in an official document sent to a US Judge that a team of lawyers had a whole week to prepare. Even more so given this single quote is key to the entire case and their misquotation completely changes its meaning.

 

[Unpilot]

No. It's just Tesla using the old user car sales tactic. There was no particular malfunction on the website last night at all.

Says the Tesla webmaster /S

 

[Causalien]

The key premise of the SEC's case against Elon over the original take private tweet was that Elon's choice of wording was reckless given the early stage of the process. M&A announcements should also have also been sent first to Nasdaq, but that was only a minor issue - the SEC's real problem was Elon said "funding secured" rather than "I have verbal investor support".

So it truly is incredible that the SEC would either fraudulently or negligently misquote Elon in an official document sent to a US Judge that a team of lawyers had a whole week to prepare. Even more so given this single quote is key to the entire case and their misquotation completely changes its meaning.

So put the heat on the individual so they can turn and give out the name of their benefactors? Then sue those shorties that paid the SEC.

Now that Tesla has money to blow on lawsuits. Definitely go ahead and pursue this route.

 

[KarenRei]

Did the SEC even read what Tesla/Elon submitted to the judge? I am reading the SECs response here and I thinking a little too much 420 might be in the SEC's diet.

Just noticed this post and laughed, because the first thing I said while reading the SEC letter is, "Are these people high?"

 

[KarenRei]

In unrelated case news (Unsworth):

Reply (Motion related)

 

[ZachF]

So put the heat on the individual so they can turn and give out the name of their benefactors? Then sue those shorties that paid the SEC.

Now that Tesla has money to blow on lawsuits. Definitely go ahead and pursue this route.

The Shorties don't pay them... They just hire them for more than they're worth in a few years afterwards. It's a giant revolving door.

That's how you can create trillions of dollars of worthless/fradulent mortgage backed securities, almost collapse the economy, and not convict a single mothersugaring person.

The entire financial system needed an enema in 2008 and got a bailout instead.

 

[2virgule5]

Says the Tesla webmaster /S

Well let's see - ordered one yesterday afternoon (you never know with Tesla nowadays - I wanted a L3MR and missed it so went for LR-RWD). Curious to know if it will be delivered before end Q1 - I expect it will. So far no VIN yet. First time I had no other choice than Home Delivery even if I'm only miles away for a delivery center.

 

[azaz]

not sure if anyone else here has read "Shoe Dog", Phil Knight's excellent autobiography about the inception of Nike but the actions of the SEC recently bring to mind when the US Treasury almost bankrupted Nike by getting them to pay exorbitant duties on shoes that were imported. Nike's competitors smartly, sold comparable models at inflated prices and because of some new law at the time the Treasury said Nike had to pay duties on the Average Selling Price of comparable models vs what Nike was selling it for. The ASP was incredibly inflated as Nike's competition had colluded to sell comparable models for incredibly inflated prices.

now the treasury dept was technically following the letter of the law or whatever, but almost singlehandedly destroyed what would go on to be one of the greatest American success stories ever. a lot of similarities with that and what SEC/short sellers are doing with Tesla. Nike wiggled themselves out of that by getting their home state senator on their side (he was head of the Treasury's budgeting committee or something), I dont see a similar avenue for Tesla here besides the courts.

 

[neroden]

I still feel the same way and it looks like the SEC may be grasping at straws but they apparently have not established a factual dispute so this is a matter of interpretation of the facts. I expect no evidentiary hearing but an oral argument where counsel presents each side's I interpretation of the agreement and the facts. I like EM's argument right now
Edit I see EM has asked to submit more on the negotiations. I think it is likely that this will be approved. However it still looks to me like the facts are not in dispute and the issues will revolve around the meaning of the agreement and whether it (absurdly) limits tweets on Tesla completely. This appears to be a desperate position by the SEC.

You don't think there's a factual dispute when the SEC asserts that Musk wrote "will make 500K" in a particular tweet (using quotation marks) and in actual fact that is not what he wrote? While Musk says, accurately, that he wrote "around 500K"?

That looks like a factual dispute to me. Two claims, in quotation marks, about exactly what was tweeted. One claim is true, one is false. Enter evidence of the tweet to resolve the dispute.

 

[Causalien]

By the way, thanks for everyone who is disseminating all the legalese here for those not well versed in law.

 

[Fact Checking]

musk never running a tweet by the securities counsel Is a really bad look. shows that he wasn't really making a good faith effort to comply with the settlement he signed.

True, and the SEC would be in a better position to argue that if they weren't making false claims of fact.

Sorry, it's no true at all that Elon and Tesla didn't make a good-faith effort to comply with a settlement - it's a false narrative of the SEC, and it is a bad faith argument to such a degree that I think the SEC lawyers should be sanctioned for it.

Here's a LONG list of good faith compliance measures of both Elon and Tesla making a lot of good faith effort to comply with the settlement:

• Tesla chose two new independent directors, not objected to by the SEC,
  
• Tesla hired a new securities counsel, ran by and not objected to by the SEC,
• Tesla formed a new Disclosure Committee of independent directors and worked out a disclosure policy,
  
• Elon consciously chose a particularly safe method to comply: he started self-censoring every tweet after the Disclosure Committee was established, avoiding ANY mention of material or potentially material information,
• This method, by definition, resulted in him not having to pass through tweets the Disclosure Committee or the securities laweyr,
  
• As a result the number of Elon's tweets dropped roughly in half compared to the period before, as laid out in the expert opinion,
• Elon also limited most of his Tesla tweets to after market hours,
  
• This was all a result of his self-censorship and good-faith effort to avoid conflict with the SEC.
• Tesla not only established the Disclosure Committee that held several hearings, but they also had a lawyer on line who was real-time monitoring every tweet of Elon, and was giving him feedback. This wasn't required by the settlement, yet they implemented it, proving that Tesla and Elon went way beyond the letter of the settlement to get the SEC off their backs.
• Furthermore, the clarification tweet was the result of and is proof of this exact monitoring effort: Tesla counsel indicated to Elon that the "about 500k cars" tweet might be ambiguous and that out of abundance of caution they wrote a second tweet clarifying what he meant.
• Tesla paid $20,000,000 and Elon paid another $20,000,000 in "fines".

The fact that Elon didn't send a single tweet for securities counsel was undisputed in Elon's reply motion, and the SEC bringing it up as a failure is an intentionally misconstrued, borderline dishonest legal argument.

The SEC moved against Elon I believe because they WANTED conflict and they wanted confrontation for unknown reasons, and the SEC WANTED to punish Elon for being disrespectful of the SEC's action, which btw. was before the Disclosure Committee and the new policy went into effect.

 

[Doggydogworld]

So it truly is incredible that the SEC would either fraudulently or recklessly negligently misquote Elon's wording in an official document sent to a US Judge that a team of lawyers had a whole week to prepare. Even more so given this single quote is key to the entire case and their misquotation completely changes its meaning.

The SEC brief refers to Musk's tweet a dozen times, both inside and outside quotation marks. One of those references dropped a single word. There is no possible way the judge could be misled by this error, and there is no way anyone at the SEC thought they'd gain an advantage by slipping it in.

The judge will find Musk in contempt. People here are wasting way too much energy on this.

 

[Zaxxon]

Nope.
It already did.

Not quite. Q4 2017 had 77 more as of current time per teslastats.no. Getting close, tho!

 

[aubreymcfato]

Not quite. Q4 2017 had 77 more as of current time per teslastats.no. Getting close, tho!

Yes, sorry, I misread your message before. Best month ever right now, best quarter tomorrow.

 

[Causalien]

The SEC brief refers to Musk's tweet a dozen times, both inside and outside quotation marks. One of those references dropped a single word. There is no possible way the judge could be misled by this error, and there is no way anyone at the SEC thought they'd gain an advantage by slipping it in.

The judge will find Musk in contempt. People here are wasting way too much energy on this.

From what I know so far. The exactly 500 000 or about 500 000 is the point of contention. The difference between material or no material.

So the case seems to be about deciding whether or not All of elon's tweets gets sensored or just the material ones.

 

[Nocturnal]

The Shorties don't pay them... They just hire them for more than they're worth in a few years afterwards. It's a giant revolving door.

That's how you can create trillions of dollars of worthless/fradulent mortgage backed securities, almost collapse the economy, and not convict a single mothersugaring person.

The entire financial system needed an enema in 2008 and got a bailout instead.