[dallashoxton]

>Short sellers can't make Musk bash the SEC or call people pedos; that's on him.

But they certainly can engineer a fake rumor of an SEC requesting contempt of court by manipulating journalists and forging documents, if sufficiently motivated. Consider the SuperMicro story submitted to mainstream publications last year that was obviously fake and caused a massive decline in their stock. I don't think it's above a sophisticated actor to socially engineer a journalist in service of a "short and distort" campaign. Even Jim Cramer laid out the typical tactics of a short attack: get a short position open and then spread false rumors to a "bozo reporter" [0][1]

I'm no big Elon Musk fan, but the funny thing is -- correct me if I'm missing something -- I can't seem to find any evidence that the SEC ever published the complaint[2] documents supplied by a USA today journalist on the sec.gov website. Searching for "Case 1:18-cv-08865-AJN" only brings up the original settlement from October 2018. That alone gives me pause.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6gxPCurDJs&t=1m43s

[1]: https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/2918951-g-hudson/1026551-...

[2]: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5750664-Show-Cause.h...

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

So, let me get this straight. You think short sellers are a massive cabal of evil geniuses and they just go around forging court documents and duping journalists? But just in the case of TSLA, not all the other companies it would be possible to short? And you think that's more likely than that the SEC asked the judge to hold Musk in contempt, which he obviously is by a plain reading of the settlement agreement?

This is waayayayayayaaaayyyyy off the deep end. Please check your priors, they are busted.

[dallashoxton]

You're acting as if market manipulation is some far-out conspiracy theory rather than something relatively common. I don't think it takes a "kabal of evil geniuses" to dupe a few credulous journalists who are incentivized and looking for a scoop by forging some documents. There are far more complex market manipulation conspiracies that are well-documented (see: LIBOR scandal)

Furthermore, why haven't we heard anything from the SEC? They are an increasingly transparent organization. Why haven't they issued a press release or published their court filings on their website? Are we supposed to just trust a journalist's word and ability to verify that an anonymous "source familiar with the matter" isn't just bamboozling them?

[ceejayoz]

C'mon, mate. Someone linked you to Musk himself commenting on this story. The "faked court docs" conspiracy theory dies definitively there. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1100215984713957376

[anth_anm]

> You're acting as if market manipulation is some far-out conspiracy theory rather than something relatively common.

of course it's common.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026872652290379776?lang...

There's one excellent example of illegal market manipulation.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

> You're acting as if market manipulation is some far-out conspiracy theory rather than something relatively common.

Something of the scope you're suggesting has literally never happened, as far as I am aware. Certainly not recently (i.e. last forty years) in the US. Bet ya fifty dollars the SEC did in fact send this show-cause order.

[daveed]

So you also think that these short-sellers also made Elon respond to people on twitter, confirming the SEC action? https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1100215984713957376?s=08

[dallashoxton]

Elon Musk knows as much about it as we do. It's not like he can call up the SEC and ask them to confirm/deny if they're taking action on him.

Sorry, but this story originally came from Bloomberg and I lost all faith in Bloomberg after they refused to retract the SuperMicro story. I will believe it when I see it on the sec.gov website. Until then it's as good as bullshit in my eyes.

[ceejayoz]

> It's not like he can call up the SEC and ask them to confirm/deny if they're taking action on him.

He and his legal team will absolutely receive copies of any court filings in this case.

Individual filings won't be on sec.gov. You can check PACER, though.

This filing also indicates Musk's legal team chimed in about the tweet in response to the SEC's inquiry (page five). If that weren't the case, Musk would certainly contest that statement. This bit too:

> "According to counsel, immediately upon seeing Musk's 7:15 tweet for the first time after Musk had published it, Tesla's "Designated Securites Counsel" arranged to meet with Musk, and they drafted Musk's corrective 11:41 tweet together."

[dallashoxton]

>Individual filings won't be on sec.gov

For an application to a court seeking that someone be held in contempt of court? Yes, this absolutely would be on sec.gov as a 'litigation release' and there are 2500 such examples listed there. If it were true and the SEC is just waiting to issue a press release, I think it's prudent to actually wait for that rather than believe some apocryphal document.

As for contesting the statement, who knows? He is not exactly the most stable individual these days (which is what makes him and his companies a natural target for shortsellers)