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by jordz 2671 days ago
Can the SEC really do this given the content of this tweet? Surely they can’t seek approval for every tweet about Tesla? What if he says he’s driving home from “the Tesla factory”. Does this count as a breach if he didn’t seek approval?
7 comments

Musk and his lawyers agreed to the terms of the settlement.

The only reason he had to settle in the first place was because he tweeted false, market-moving information via twitter. Maybe Elon should have considered the consequences then.

Why didn’t he just hand over his twitter password to a social media manager and stop tweeting once he lost millions of dollars over the last tweet?

Hubris.
Why didn't the lawyers and board require it?
The former work for him, and he controls the latter. The "independent" board member Tesla added after signing the agreement was non other than Larry Ellison
Clearly, he doesn't care that much.
Tesla formally said in 2013 that Musk's personal Twitter account was one of the ways "we announce material information to the public about our company, products and services and other issues."

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000119312513...

For additional information, please follow Elon Musk’s and Tesla’s Twitter accounts: twitter.com/elonmusk and twitter.com/TeslaMotors

Its about tweeting material information or disinformation about the company.

If he's saying he's driving home from the Tesla factory, that isn't material information. Him tweeting that Tesla is going to make 500k vehicles is material information and needs to be vetted by the agreed upon process per the settlement.

Elon specified that this Twitter account is a place to find official Tesla announcements. He could have said it was his private opinions but once he said it was official hes bound by those rules
It's only for tweets that are "materially relevant" to Tesla's investors. I don't know if the CEO visiting the factory qualifies as relevant to investors, but any comments about production rates certainly would, since ramping up production seems to be one of Tesla's biggest struggles. The fact that he said something untrue about production rates (overstating previous predictions by 25%) certainly doesn't help.
The order was to get approval for tweets that would have "material consequences for investors", so presumably just mentioning Tesla as part of his day to day routine would be fine.

But honestly, its not like its that hard to just not tweet about Tesla.

His tweet would be more like “I am driving home from factory that is still open at 20:00 and all workers are there”, when it closed at 18:30. Moreover, given his history I am absolutely seeing why a single tweet is enough to start a litigation against him.