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Broke through 100 day average and upward trend line... getting awfully close to 200 day average (~$814). A break below that and mid-$700s here we come.
In a court filing out late Friday, shareholders who are suing Tesla and CEO Elon Musk over alleged securities fraud said they won part of a critical ruling in their class-action lawsuit.
The shareholders are suing Tesla over money they lost after Musk tweeted in 2018 that he was considering taking his electric vehicle company private at $420 per share and said he had funding secured to do so.
Tesla’s stock trading initially halted, then shares were highly volatile for weeks after the tweets. Musk later said that he had been in discussions with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and felt confident that funding would come through at his proposed price. A deal never materialized.
The Securities and Exchange Commission investigated and charged Musk with civil securities fraud as a result of those tweets. Tesla and Musk struck a revised settlement agreement in 2019 over those charges, but Musk is trying to terminate that agreement now.
Damages from the shareholders’ class-action lawsuit could amount to billions of dollars that would be paid by Musk and Tesla to those who are members of the class.
The shareholders’ attorneys said in the filing out Friday that Judge Edward M. Chen, who is presiding in this matter, had concluded that Musk acted with scienter -- in other words, that he knowingly made false statements about having funding secured when he tweeted.
This information was revealed in a request the shareholders’ lawyers made for a temporary restraining order against Musk to stop him from making further public remarks about aspects of this case, as he did during a widely viewed appearance at the TED 2022 conference on April 14.
The request for the temporary restraining order alludes to an earlier ruling by Judge Chen that is currently under seal because it refers to evidence that Musk’s team regarded as confidential. “We anticipate the order will be published soon,” Adam Apton of Levi & Korsinsky, lead counsel for the class of Tesla shareholders, told CNBC by email.
At the TED conference on Thursday, Musk called financial regulators in the SEC’s San Francisco office “bastards.”
Musk also said, “The SEC knew that funding was secured but they pursued an active, public investigation nonetheless at the time. Tesla was in a precarious financial situation. And I was told by the banks that if I did not agree to settle with the SEC that they would, the banks would cease providing working capital and Tesla would go bankrupt immediately. So that’s like having a gun to your child’s head. I was forced to concede to the SEC unlawfully.”
It’s not clear why Musk felt he may have been unable to obtain working capital for Tesla, but confident he could muster the billions required to take the company private at the same time.
Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said in a statement emailed to CNBC: “Nothing will ever change the truth which is that Elon Musk was considering taking Tesla private and could have -- all that’s left some half decade later is random plaintiffs’ lawyers trying to make a buck and others trying to block that truth from coming to light all to the detriment of free speech.”
Spiro gave the same statement to Bloomberg, which first reported on new developments in the shareholders’ class action.
A trial date is currently set for May 31, 2022, in a San Francisco federal court, but that could change.
Levi & Korsinsky’s Apton told CNBC, “We look forward to proving the rest of our case at trial and recovering damages on behalf of the class.”
Musk loses bid to end SEC agreement on oversight of Tesla tweets
April 27, 2022
April 27 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge slammed Elon Musk on Wednesday for trying to escape a settlement with regulators requiring oversight of his Tesla Inc tweets, saying the billionaire was "bemoaning" the 2018 deal now that he felt Tesla was "invincible."
The dispute stems from the claim by the Securities and Exchange Commission that Musk, the CEO of Tesla, defrauded investors on Aug. 7, 2018, by tweeting that he had "funding secured" to potentially take the electric car company private at a premium, when in reality a buyout was not close. Tesla shares rose following the tweet.
Musk's lawyers had sought to terminate the 2018 consent decree that resolved those SEC securities fraud charges, arguing that the regulator's pursuit of Musk "crossed the line into harassment" and impeded his constitutional right to free speech. read more
U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan rejected those arguments as well as Musk's request to block a separate SEC investigation into tweets that Musk posted last year regarding the sale of some of his Tesla stock.
"Musk cannot now seek to retract the agreement he knowingly and willingly entered by simply bemoaning that he felt like he had to agree to it at the time but now -- once the specter of the litigation is a distant memory and his company has become, in his estimation, all but invincible -- wishes that he had not," wrote Liman.
The 2018 agreement required Musk and Tesla to each pay $20 million civil fines and for Musk to step down as Tesla's chairman. The consent decree also required Musk to obtain pre-clearance from Tesla lawyers for tweets and other public statements that could be material to Tesla.
The SEC's probe related to Musk's sale of some of his Tesla shares is over tweets he sent on Nov. 6 last year that asked readers if they supported his selling 10% of his Tesla stake, and saying that he would abide by the poll results. The SEC has subpoenaed Musk and Tesla to determine if those tweets were vetted before they were published.
A majority of the readers did support such a share sale, and the poll caused Tesla's share price to fall. Musk has since sold more than $16 billion of Tesla stock.
Liman said it was "unsurprising" that the SEC would have questions about the unusual manner in which Musk went about deciding to sell his stock.
Musk has been escalating his attacks on the SEC. Earlier this month he referred to the regulator as "those bastards."
Musk Defeats Investor Claims That Tesla’s SolarCity Deal Was Improper
Judge finds buyout of solar-power provider was at fair price
Musk’s involvement in $2.6 billion deal criticized in ruling
April 27, 2022, 5:07 PM EDTUpdated onApril 27, 2022, 5:39 PM EDTTesla Inc. co-founder Elon Musk won’t have to hand over as much as $13 billion in shares of the electric car maker he got in a buyout of SolarCity, after a judge found he isn’t liable for backing the deal.
Delaware Chancery Court Judge Joseph Slights III concluded the multi-billionaire -- who recently agreed to buy social-media powerhouse Twitter Inc. for $44 billion -- didn’t improperly use his influence with Tesla directors to prod them to acquire the struggling solar power provider Musk founded with his cousins. Tesla investors demanded Musk return Tesla shares he received as part of the $2.6 billion deal in 2016.
Slights found Musk, who served as SolarCity’s chairman and largest shareholder at the time of the purchase, wasn’t improperly on both sides of the deal and didn’t ram it through at the expense of Tesla shareholders. Disgruntled investors argued SolarCity was insolvent at the time and not worth the price. They also said Musk failed to properly remove himself from the deal’s details.
“The preponderance of the evidence reveals that Tesla paid a fair price -- SolarCity was, at a minimum, worth what Tesla paid for it, and the acquisition otherwise was highly beneficial to Tesla,” Slights said in his 131-page ruling.
The ruling burnishes Musk’s reputation as a free-wheeling entrepreneur who relishes going against the grain as he runs the world’s largest maker of electric cars, and spares Musk what could have been a substantial ding even to his vast personal fortune. It also may reinforce the nickname “Teflon Elon,” for winning a case many thought he’d lose.
Musk, 50, is the world’s richest person, with wealth valued at $253 billion. His Twitter acquisition features one of the biggest leveraged buyout deals in history. He’s taking private a 16-year-old social networking platform that has become a hub of public discourse and a flashpoint in the debate over online free speech.
In the SolarCity case, investors accused Musk of improperly prodding Tesla directors to sign off on the SolarCity buyout “at a patently unfair price, following a highly flawed process, in order to bail out” family members, Slights said in the ruling.
He was the only Tesla director to challenge the investors’ claims in court. His board colleagues agreed to a $60 million settlement of allegations by disgruntled shareholders that they were duped into backing the SolarCity deal. That accord was funded by insurance covering Tesla’s officers and directors.
During a trial last year, Musk fenced with investors’ lawyers over his handling of the SolarCity deal and his predilection for making outrageous statements while running the electric-car maker.
“To be honest, I don’t want to be the boss of anything,” he said on the stand. “I don’t want to be CEO. I tried not to be CEO of Tesla, but I had to or it would die. I rather hate being a boss. I’m an engineer.”
In his testimony, Musk acknowledged helping hire lawyers to guide the deal through board confirmation and holding weekly meetings to light a fire under the due diligence process.
He maintained that the solar power company was on a solid financial footing, but had said in an internal memo the firm needed to solve its “liquidity crisis.” It turned out SolarCity was hemorrhaging cash and in danger of defaulting on its debt, according to court testimony.
But Musk dismissed claims of impropriety, having recused himself from deliberations over the deal and been barred from the Tesla directors’ final approval vote.
The case is In Re Tesla Motors Inc. Stockholders Litigation, 12711, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).
Won't know if he made any sales today (4/28) until tomorrow.
Probably going to be doing more selling. He's buying Twitter for $44 billion. He's sold $3,989,322,000 worth of TSLA so far, or 9.06% of cost of Twitter.
Court says Musk recklessly tweeted that 'funding secured' for taking Tesla private
May 11, 2022
SAN FRANCISCO, May 10 (Reuters) - A court said that Elon Musk's 2018 tweets that funding was secured to take Tesla private was inaccurate and reckless, saying "there was nothing concrete" about financing from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund at that time.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco is a major victory for investors alleging that Musk inflated stock prices by making false and misleading statements, causing billions of damages.
In 2018, Musk met with representatives of the Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and had a discussion about taking Tesla private, but evidence shows that "there was nothing concrete about funding coming from the PIF," the judge wrote.
"Rather, discussions between Tesla and the PIF were clearly at the preliminary stage.
"No reasonable jury could find that Mr. Musk did not act recklessly given his clear knowledge of the discussions," he said.
He said details such as the total amount of funding needed to take Tesla private or the price to be paid for Tesla stock were not discussed.
The summary judgment, made on April 1, was sealed for more than a month before it was publicly available on Tuesday.
"It is hugely significant," shareholder attorney Nicholas Porritt, a partner at Levi & Korsinsky LLP told Reuters.
He said it is rare that class action plaintiffs get summary judgment on falsity and scienter before going to a jury trial, scheduled in January.
The remaining issue is what damages the intentionally false statement has caused to shareholders, he said.
The judge refused to grant shareholders summary judgment on the question of whether or not the allegedly false statements actually impacted Tesla's share prices.
Musk's lawyer, who has filed motions to undo the court decision, was not immediately available for comments. Musk said recently that funding was actually secured to take Tesla private in 2018.
The latest ruling was in line with a complaint from the U.S. security regulator which sued Musk for fraud charges for the tweets in 2018. He settled with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, stepping down as Tesla chairman, paying fines and agreeing to have a lawyer approve some of his tweets before posting them.
I hope it keeps dipping, I don't need to sell anytime soon. I may now be able to purchase some more since I sold a few shares last month when it was around $1000 and paid off my car loan, thanks Tesla!
I've paid off almost all my debt, my debt to income ratio is good now thanks to TSLA
Now I just need the housing market to collapse so I can afford one
Looking at this again, I just realized that you hid the twitter embed to get a cleaner screenshot! Props to you! Did you remove it after screenshotting or did you block the embed element with uBlock or another adblocker? I really appreciate the effort you took to make that, it doesn't go unnoticed.
Originally Posted by AZuser
$130 lower since this post. Thanks, Stunna.
And my "Deluded Asshole" User Title is the cherry on top. This is perfect
Damn, responding to the same post three times. Someone is living in your head rent free.
Just reciprocating all the love he's sending my way by screenshotting my post, pasting it in a layer on top of a graph, exporting and uploading it here. All that for lil' ol' me....
02-23-2022, 02:38 PM
@#1 STUNNA 
and loved 
when you screenshot my post and put it in your graph. I appreciate the effort 
at "hid the twitter embed to get a cleaner screenshot"