Elon Musk Defiant As Judge Orders Him to Explain Tesla Tweets
A federal judge has ordered Tesla chief Elon Musk to explain by March 11 why he should not be held in contempt for what the Securities and Exchange Commission described as a violation of a settlement deal last year, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Musk tweeted Feb. 19 that Tesla would make around 500,000 cars in 2019,” writes the Chronicle‘s Melia Russell. “Later that day, he sent a follow-up tweet saying that number represented Tesla’s ‘annualized production rate at end of 2019’ and it would only roll about 400,000 cars off the manufacturing line this year.”
Bloomberg explains that Tesla’s internal system to have an in-house lawyer vet Musk’s tweets didn’t work in this case because his “social-media minder didn’t bless” the Feb. 19 post:
The sitter — whose official title at Tesla is alternately Disclosure Counsel or Designated Securities Counsel — did step in after seeing the offending tweet and arranged to meet Musk to draft a clarifying post.
Read the SF Chronicle article.
