The SEC has subpoenaed Elon Musk after he asked his millions of Twitter followers if he should sell his Tesla shares .
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) subpoenaed Elon Musk after he published a tweet asking if he should sell his Tesla shares.
The summons was given on November 16, 2021, reveals Bloomberg, after Musk asked if it was feasible to sell 10% of his Tesla shares to pay his taxes , which have been criticized as “low” compared to your heritage.
Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.
Do you support this?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021
Because the ‘Yes’ vote won , the automaker’s shares plunged 16% over the next two trading days.
Tesla, which disclosed the subpoena in its filing days ago with the SEC, did not elaborate on the nature of the agency’s investigation, except to say that it was “seeking information about our governance processes around compliance with the agreement that we have.” with the SEC.”
Recidivist
Of course, this is not the first time that Musk has been called by the Commission to explain his tweets.
Musk sent the most controversial of his tweets on August 7, 2018, in which he claimed to have the funds to take Tesla private at $420 a share. (Tesla has been a publicly traded company since 2010.)
Musk said on Twitter that he had “funds secured” to close the deal and buy out shareholders who didn’t want to keep the company . He posted these tweets during the afternoon while trading was still taking place, and the company’s share price soared in response.
The SEC immediately launched an investigation, ultimately concluding that while he had held some meetings with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Musk “had never discussed a private transaction at $420 per share with any potential source of funding, had not done nothing to investigate whether it would be possible for all current investors to remain with Tesla as a private company through a ‘special purpose fund,’ and had not confirmed Tesla investor support for a potential private transaction.”
A year later, Tesla and the SEC agreed that Musk ‘s tweets about the company should be subject to increased oversight. Under the agreement, a company attorney was appointed to pre-approve tweets from Musk about Tesla ‘s financial health, sales or delivery numbers , estimated or not, as well as other specific topics.