Play all audios:
Tesla chief Elon Musk has been accused of securities fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), stemming from a Twitter message to his 22.5 million followers in early August
relating to the electric vehicle company. The SEC lawsuit follows two other lawsuits brought by investors over the same incident, lodged in mid-August. Bloomberg reports that the SEC is
seeking “unspecified monetary penalties” for misleading investors, adding: “More importantly, [the SEC] will request that a judge bar Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public
company”, which could heavily impact his work at the helm of SpaceX and other projects. SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from
multiple perspectives. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE SIGN UP FOR THE WEEK'S FREE NEWSLETTERS From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered
directly to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Musk responded to the SEC decision to sue,
saying the “unjustified action by the SEC leaves me deeply saddened and disappointed”. In the tweets, beginning on 8 August this year, Musk made the claim that he was preparing to take
Tesla Inc. private, at a price of $420 (£320) per share, and that he had secured funding to make the deal happen. The August Tweet sent Tesla’s share price soaring by 11%, before dropping
back again – and today’s news of the SEC lawsuit has sent Tesla shares tumbling by 13% in after-hours trading. The lawsuit is the latest blow for Musk, whose increasingly erratic behaviour
has rattled investor confidence. Musk recently came under fire for “casually smoking marijuana” on video during comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast, the Washington Post says. According to the SEC
complaint, Musk allegedly decided to set the share price at $420 because he had “recently learned about the number’s significance in marijuana culture and thought his girlfriend ‘would find
it funny, which admittedly is not a great reason to pick a price’”. Complicating things further, Musk is also facing a separate lawsuit from British cave diving expert Vernon Unsworth, who
he has publicly and repeatedly accused of being a “child rapist” and a “paedo”, without providing any proof. When asked for an apology, Musk publicly dared Vernon to sue him, resulting in
legal action being launched in the US District Court in Los Angeles, seeking £80,000 in compensatory damages and unspecified punitive damages.