According to a financial filing filed monday by Tesla, the company received a subpoena from the U.S. securities regulator in November 2021 in connection with the 2018 SEC settlement of Musk's tweet.
Musk sparked a stock sell-off after asking its Twitter fans last November if they should sell their 10 percent stake in the company, and Tesla shares have fallen nearly a quarter since the tweet was posted.
On November 6 last year, Musk asked his fans on Twitter if he wanted to sell his 10 percent stake in Tesla (about 1.7 percent of the company's issued stock). Ten days after the tweet, Tesla received the Aforementioned subpoena from the SEC. The subpoena asked Tesla to explain whether Musk's statement met the requirements of the previous settlement agreement.
While most of his Twitter followers answered "yes," Musk is likely to start selling Tesla stock regardless of the polls. That's because Musk will face more than $15 billion in option tax orders.
The SEC's controversy with Musk's tweets dates back a few years. In 2018, federal agencies charged Musk with fraud because he tweeted that he had "money security" to take Tesla private for $420 per share. The tweet caused Tesla's stock price to swing for weeks.
Eventually, Tesla reached a settlement with the SEC, which required that any tweets from Musk be pre-approved by one of Tesla's legal/regulatory compliance officers with any information about public companies that could affect its share price. Musk must also relinquish tesla's chairmanship within three years, and the company and CEO must each pay a $20 million fine. Not long ago, Musk said his 2018 tweet about Tesla's plans to go private was "completely true" and that investors who claimed the tweet was fraudulent were wrong.
But Musk does not seem to be "safe", but also "bar" with the SEC.
In early 2019, Musk tweeted model 3 production figures, and the SEC asked for contempt of court for violating the original settlement agreement: The tweet with the vehicle production figures was not pre-approved by Tesla's lawyers.
In 2020, Musk called the SEC the "Short Sellers Get Rich Committee" and poured dirty water on the SEC in cryptic language.
In December 2021, within weeks of receiving the latest SEC subpoena, Musk also tried to belittle the whistleblower on a tweet. Musk invited his tens of millions of followers on Twitter to "report Tesla," and there was a link to a web page on which fans could buy a metal whistle shaped like Cyberruck.
A week later, the SEC will confirm that it is investigating a complaint from former Tesla employee Stephen Henkes, who allegedly concealed serious fire risks associated with its solar PV installations.
According to US media sources, some Tesla shareholders took Musk to court, saying that Musk coerced the company's board of directors to reach a transaction to acquire solar power generation company SolarCity in 2016 and demanded that it repay $13 billion.