People settle all the time even if they are innocent. There are a variety of reasons such as the cost of the lawsuit and the negative press from the trial.
Yes, Elon was unlawfully pressured to settle with the SEC against his will or best interests.
At the time Tesla was in a "precarious" financial position with the Model 3 ramp up. The banks told Elon they would suspend his lines of credit/hold loans if he did not immediately settle with the SEC.
He chose to settle with the SEC and admit to lying when he did not in order to save Tesla from going bankrupt. All of this aligns with publicly known information.
If we lived in a functional open society this claim would result in a special counsel investigation into the SEC and the responsible banks, with multiple bureaucrats ending up behind bars.
It sounds like "the banks," who would be in an even more privileged position to know if the $420 offer was legitimately secured, also thought it was not. Doesn't really help Elon's case. It is also not the story he told in 2018 when he was still fighting the charges.
> a special counsel investigation into the SEC and the responsible banks, with multiple bureaucrats ending up behind bars.
>It sounds like "the banks," who would be in an even more privileged position to know if the $420 offer was legitimately secured
Speculation. What's not speculation however is that the company suffered material harm as a byproduct of malicious prosecution.
If I, as a government employee, open a public investigation into someone whom I know to be innocent and cause that entity harm I have incurred liability. The SEC knew Elon had the funding, they used weasel words to imply he did not. The SEC would have lost in court. _All_ contracts have contingencies, this was no different. Saying that because a contingency existed the funds were "not secure" is horsecrap.
This is sort of exactly the thing I mean. Even if you don't agree with me that Elon is a serial liar, I don't think you can dispute a more generous characterization of him as having a long history of optimistically interpreting the facts in his favor. Why on earth would you take this claim at face value?