Musk in hot water with SEC for failure to comply with subpoena

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is taking Elon Musk back to court to compel his testimony in its ongoing investigation of the billionaire's purchase of Twitter stock and related SEC filings last year. In its complaint, the SEC said Musk agreed to provide additional testimony after meeting with the Commission in July …

[DS999]

He is copying Trump in everything

Even his penchant of obstructionism and delays to prevent ever being held accountable for any wrongdoing. I imagine before long he'll take the next page out of Trump's playbook and echo his bogus claims that Biden is "weaponizing the government" against him.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: He is copying Trump in everything

Almost...

In the latest Forbes 400 list, Musk is at the top, whilst Trump has dropped off the list - being $300 million short to make it to the list time

https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2023/10/03/donald-trump-drops-off-the-forbes-400-for-second-time-in-3-years/

[Blackjack]

Re: He is copying Trump in everything

Trump has been proved to LIE about how much money he has.

[teknopaul]

Re: He is copying Trump in everything

Difference is, if they took control of his companies and forbid him or family any involvement: they would just make more money.

[aerogems]

Re: He is copying Trump in everything

Unfortunately, an appeals court put a stay on that particular order. I kind of grudgingly have to agree, but if (and let's face it, it's most likely when) he loses that particular case it will go back into effect. My personal guess would be that they'll give the Trump family the boot from the company and place it in a receivership with general instructions to keep running the business as a going concern and not to wind down operations. If Trump somehow manages to win on appeal and gets the verdict overturned, the criminal "masterminds" could be back in charge.

I just think it would be absolutely hilarious if, in order to pay fines imposed by the Court, the receiver sold off Mar-a-Lago. Even funnier would be if they ended up having to sell all the residential properties to pay the fines and Trump was effectively left homeless. That's probably a bit too much to hope for though. Losing the NYC Penthouse and/or Mar-a-Lago, however, seems well within the realm of plausible possibility.

[DS999]

Re: He is copying Trump in everything

The intent isn't to wind down the company, it is to insure he doesn't asset strip it by transferring anything that's worth money to another company while leaving behind a debt ridden shell. They want the assets left behind so if he's found liable for the $250 million they're seeking there is money to pay it, and then the court receiver will order asset sales as necessary to pay the fine.

Whatever is left after the fine is paid would be owned by Trump and he'd be free to continue to operate it as a business - just not in the state of New York.

Now whether Trump's empire is actually worth $250 million after all the wild lies and debt are accounted for, who knows. The deeper they dig the more lies they uncover. One of the things Trump has always said is that he bought Mar-A-Lago for cash. He actually bought it for 100% debt, and had an agreement with the bank that they wouldn't file paperwork showing the lien with the government so he could maintain that lie.

There's also a covenant on Mar-A-Lago where he can only operate it as a social club and it cannot be used for any other purpose - he sold the rights for it to be residential property (including any possibility of splitting it up and developing it) to some non profit historical society or something like that. But he never told the banks he had done that, so while he was claiming it was worth $1 billion or more because of the possibility the house/club could be knocked down and the property developed at today's real estate prices that has never been a possibility and thus it is worth a tiny tiny fraction of what he claims.

[Matthew "The Worst Writer on the Internet" Saroff]

Frog March Him Out of His Office in Handcuffs

Seriously, just jail him.

I'd pay good money to see that on pay per view.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Frog March Him Out of His Office in Handcuffs

I'd pay good money to see that on pay per view.

Lots of people are still waiting for the Musk v Zuckerberg event too

[Simian Surprise]

Re: Frog March Him Out of His Office in Handcuffs

It was going to be a cage match, as I recall.

Why not a prison-cell match instead? If Musk wins, we don't have to deal with Zuckerberg anymore, so there's no downside. (The best outcome of course is them both KO'ing each other and then neither can leave, that's how it works, right?)

[aerogems]

Re: Frog March Him Out of His Office in Handcuffs

Someone who has an account with one of those AI art bots... have it create a photo of the FBI arresting Twitler at the Twitter HQ. Then post it on Twitter and see how long it stays up.

[NoneSuch]

Re: Frog March Him Out of His Office in Handcuffs

Either he is a citizen of the US and subject to their laws, or a citizen of the US and subject to their laws.

Either way, subpoena violation should result in jail time. But, he's a billionaire with government contracts and contacts, so he gets off.

James Clapper repeatedly lied to Congress about NSA bugging of US citizens. How many days did he spend in the pokey? Zero.

At the rate they're going, I give the US until 2035 before Civil War II.

[Pascal Monett]

"enough is enough"

And just who do you think you are to say that the SEC is overstepping its bounds ?

A normal human being would be mortified by the attention, and would do everything to prove good faith and obedience to the law.

Because the SEC is the law, not you.

But you go ahead and keep digging your grave. Celebrity driving over a cliff is always prime time entertainment.

[Groo The Wanderer]

The only penalty that man will understand is JAIL TIME. :(

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Actually, for the richest man in the world, where money can buy (almost) anything, even a messaging platform at over double what it was worth, JAIL TIME is something that he can't buy, but, can be gifted to him

[elsergiovolador]

Are we not all prisoners on our beautiful Earth?

The rest is just perspective.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Are we not all prisoners on our beautiful Earth?

Well, Musk is planning on escaping to Mars - we should all hope that he achieves that ambition, sooner the better

[keithpeter]

Incredible shrinking future?

I found this article interesting if a little sad.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/elon-musks-incredible-shrinking-future.html

Things generally do look gloomy at present so some people broadcasting ambitions and hopes for the future would be useful.

Mr Musk's ambitions do seem to have shrunk quite considerably from colonies on Mars to chumboxes on X feeds.

Coat: mine's the one with battered copies of Ivan Illich's books because that's how I roll.

[Steve Davies 3]

And...

Takes his boss, Trump with him. Mind you Elon may well get tired of Trump's ranting about the 2020 election and shove him out of the airlock... Then no one can hear his rants.

Please, Elon make it so! For the sake of humanity

[Sam 15]

Enough is never enough

If a mere mortal did any of this, I agree that an orange jumpsuit would be in their near future.

However, that somehow doesn't apply if you are really really rich - or convince a lot of people that you are really really rich.

I wish it were not so, but...

[elsergiovolador]

There is a printer for that.

Just set up an LLM to hallucinate on Twitter internal documents and have people feeding paper and swapping toner round the clock.

You only need about 1800 printers to print 1 billion pages in a day.

Doable for under £25m.

[veti]

Re: There is a printer for that.

I very much doubt if it's doable for that budget.

For starters, printing 1 billion pages a day will set you back $several million per day in paper and toner alone. And then you have to pay about 60 people, 24/7, to keep feeding the paper and toner into those 1800 printers, and collecting and collating printouts from them. And you need a building to house all this stuff, and electricity to power it...

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: There is a printer for that.

Doable for under £25m

If I had £25m I wouldn't be wasting it like that..

[Anonymous Coward]

Too rich to fail

Too pretty for jail

This is America, punishment is only for the poor and the weak.

Sadly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk had failed to adequately disclose Twitter stock purchase?

a. Musk announces he will buy Twitter - the SEC sanctions him.

b. Musk buys Twitter - the SEC sanctions him.

The 13G form ,, which the SEC claimed last year Musk had failed to adequately disclose.

The SEC wasn't aware of Musk stock purchases?

Mar 14 2022, Musk Schedule 13D

[Yorick Hunt]

Re: Musk had failed to adequately disclose Twitter stock purchase?

Anyone with even just one eye open can see what the reasons and who the instigators of this are, but there's no shortage of blind sheep in the paddock who'll gladly swallow anything served up to them.

Once you're a target, there's no justice. Hopefully his status is enough to keep him afloat; lesser men would've capitulated (or been sucked asunder) long ago.

[Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch]

Re: Musk had failed to adequately disclose Twitter stock purchase?

Painting a target on your back with "Shoot Me" written underneath doesn't qualify as martyrdom. His idea of freedom ends when it stops applying to him.

"Not me, because rich" is a cry for sympathy from someone who thinks the rules are there to persecute those without power, not protect the less powerful. Sympathy comes to the likes of Musk from people who have a problem with rules in general. They tend to forget that the rules are there to protect everybody, even them, and even the billionaires, who incidentally won't hesitate to run to a court if they feel someone has hurt their feelings, let alone their interests.

You have to be careful in your choice of heroes, they might turn out to be ordinary people.

[James Anderson]

Re: Musk had failed to adequately disclose Twitter stock purchase?

The point is not that the SEC would know ( may well not have depending on holding company structures etc.) but that people trading in twitter and similar shares should be informed when someone buys a large chunk of stock in advance of a takeover, and what the investors intentions are.

[aerogems]

Re: Musk had failed to adequately disclose Twitter stock purchase?

I know you're just a troll, likely on the payroll of some PR firm that shitposts for Twitler, and like all good trolls things like facts and logic don't factor into your comments, but... Twitler was sanctioned by the SEC, and is being sued by at least one pension fund, because he didn't follow the law on when he disclosed how much of Twitter he bought. Once you own more than a certain amount of a company, you must disclose that to the SEC within a specific time frame. Twitler blew past that deadline, which allowed him to buy more shares of Twitter at much lower prices than if investors, as a whole, knew he was out there snapping up large quantities. Those facts are not in dispute because you have dates associated with the stock purchases as well as the SEC filing he finally got around to making.

[MachDiamond]

SF isn't a valid meeting place?

There are office of X or Twitter or whatever in SF so it's a valid location based on that. Elon also files around constantly in a Gulfstream that's at his disposal so San Francisco isn't an issue due to travel requirements either. Tesla's Fremont, CA plant is a short drive from SF, so it's not a time burden.

Most investors are well aware of reporting requirements when buying a greater than 5% chunk of a publicly traded company. Even a 5% slice can often mean a controlling interest in many companies so disclosures are not an evil thing. Close to 10% can indeed by a controlling interest as many shareholders never participate or assign their proxies.

Elon gets cut way too much slack. Just about any other person failing to show up when subpoenaed would be arrested and the interview would take place in a backroom under bright lights until all questions have been answered to the satisfaction of the inquisitor. For days without breaks if necessary. I suppose if the SEC it just going to give him another paltry fine for being a PIA, why should he care when he has other things to do?

[ariels-again]

Re: SF isn't a valid meeting place?

Reminder: Mush has to be in the office, this is XXXer, WFH is for the weak. I'm beginning to suspect he isn't "hard-core" enough.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: SF isn't a valid meeting place?

One place where he won't be rocking the boat wrt to any regulatory requirements is with China - they don't seem to have any problem getting executives and billionaire owners of companies to come and have a chat when they say

[aerogems]

Re: SF isn't a valid meeting place?

I seem to recall there being at least one or two Chinese billionaires who seem to have gotten word that they had displeased someone within the communist party and fucked off to parts unknown. Though, I guess you can put "easier to deal with oligarchs" in the "pro" column for dictatorships like China. Maybe that's why conservatives these days are so enamored with dictatorships. They always bitch about red tape, and if there's one thing a dictatorship is good for, it's cutting through red tape.

[MachDiamond]

Re: SF isn't a valid meeting place?

"they don't seem to have any problem getting executives and billionaire owners of companies to come and have a chat when they say"

You will also notice that Elon doesn't have bad things to say about China, at all, ever. The contract for the Tesla plant must have come with a slide show of what happened to the last oligarch that dissed the Middle Kingdom. I expect that nothing was blurred out either. It's also been noted in the news that other leaders of large companies have dropped out of sight for varying periods of time. Did they take a trip North for some re-education until they did know everything there is to know about engineering in snow and ice? The scary part is when those people resurfaced, not even a plausible excuse was put forward and nobody seems to want to speculate in-country.

[trindflo]

Re: SF isn't a valid meeting place?

Mostly agree, but flying into SF around this time of year can be dicey due to the fog.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: SF isn't a valid meeting place?

What's needed is a transport system that is not effected by the weather - I think someone was peddling something called Hyperloop that would whisk people down a tunnel at great speed. Wonder whatever happened to that

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: SF isn't a valid meeting place?

Guantanamo is also available, I hear.

[Bertieboy]

Does he not understand the word ? Even though my school Latin is over 60 years ago Sub Poena translates IIRC as Under Penalty. Fail, and the penalty should apply.

[bazza]

There would still have to be due process to determine whether or not the penalty is applied, just in case it turns out there's a good reason why compliance was not possible.

Things like Grandmother's funeral, family medical emergency, etc.coupled with apologies and active engagement to re-arrange probably count as "good reasons". I'm not sure that "I don't want to" amounts to a "good reason". I guess we're going to find out!

[bazza]

Might He Get Deported?

One does get the impression that the federal authorities are being incredibly, back-bendingly patient with this twerp.

Musk is a US citizen only by naturalisation. In theory, if he commits a sufficiently severe crime against the USA (fraud is mentioned as being one such crime) he can be denaturalised. Some of the things he's (potentially) done (market manipulation, etc) might be starting to get severe enough to count.

If he does end up being denaturalised, deported and excluded he's going to lose an awful lot...

[aerogems]

Re: Might He Get Deported?

That would certainly be amusing from a schadenfreude perspective. It wouldn't necessarily preclude him from still being the head of Tesla or Twitter though. They'd probably have to force him out at SpaceX because he'd be ineligible for a security clearance without citizenship. Then we'd have to find some country willing to take him. Stateless people stuck in those refugee camps already have it bad enough without us actively making it worse by dumping Twitler into their midst.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Might He Get Deported?

The UK Home Secretary has cut a deal with Rwanda...

[Richard 12]

Re: Might He Get Deported?

He has both South African and Canadian citizenship by birthright.

As far as is publicly known, he hasn't given up either of them so the USA would be well within UN rules on statelessness to remove his US citizenship.

I don't think they ever would though, because tax revenue.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Might He Get Deported?

"because tax revenue."

Does he pay tax? Surely he can write off just about anything against his recent losses.

[BartyFartsLast]

There are things in life that money cannot buy

And one of them is the sheer pleasure of seeing an asshole like Musk realise that the law applies to him too.

[Lurko]

Re: There are things in life that money cannot buy

I agree, but we're still waiting for that moment, because at the moment the squealy billionaire earnestly believes he's above the law.

[aerogems]

Petition For Contempt of Court

Seriously. Start sending a loud and clear message to these asshole oligarchs that they are not above the law by petitioning the judge overseeing the case to throw Twitler in the SF county jail for contempt until he meets with the SEC to provide the testimony he agreed to give. After being processed, which often includes a cavity search, and unable to be on Twitter for a couple of hours, I'm sure the withdrawal and general withdrawal and humiliation will be enough to compel him to comply.

I wish the judges in Trump's case would do the same. Treat the orange bastard like literally any other defendant appearing in their courtroom. If they wouldn't allow that kind of crap from some indigent defendant with a public defender, there's no reason Trump should be able to get away with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

As I read elsewhere

One of the reasons for not complying was a recently published biography of EM, and some time was needed to take everything into account for his legal team.

So, either he was not aware of his own actions because of all the drugs he uses, or he lied to his lawyers (and also he lied about paying them of course).