Elon Musk fires back at ‘broken’ SEC

by Chris Mills Rodrigo - 02/26/19 10:37 AM ET

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is hitting back at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), calling the agency’s oversight process “broken,” a day after regulators asked a judge to hold him in contempt.

“This has now happened several times,” Musk, who also heads SpaceX and the Boring Company, tweeted. “Something is broken with SEC oversight.”

Exactly. This has now happened several times. Something is broken with SEC oversight.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2019

The SEC said Monday that Musk should be held in contempt, alleging he violated an agreement with the agency by posting an “inaccurate” tweet earlier this month.

{mosads}The agency said the tweet from Musk about the number of cars Tesla planned to produce in 2019 violated a settlement he reached last year after the agency brought fraud charges against him. Those charges involved a tweet stating that Musk planned to take Tesla private at $420 per share and that he had secured funding to do so.

“On February 19, 2019, Musk tweeted, ‘Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019,’” the SEC reportedly said in the filing.

“Musk did not seek or receive pre-approval prior to publishing this tweet, which was inaccurate and disseminated to over 24 million people. Musk has thus violated the Court’s Final Judgment by engaging in the very conduct that the preapproval provision of the Final Judgment was designed to prevent.”

As part of last year’s agreement, Musk was forced to step down as chairman of Tesla and the company was required to appoint two independent members to its board. Musk and Tesla were also fined $20 million each.

Musk initially responded to the SEC’s Monday filing saying the agency had failed to read Tesla’s annual reports.

“SEC forgot to read Tesla earnings transcript, which clearly states 350k to 500k. How embarrassing,” he tweeted