Documents filed in a Manhattan federal court Thursday reveal the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Tesla CEO Elon Musk for fraud. The SEC opened an investigation into Musk after the CEO fatefully tweeted his intent to take the company private. “Funding secured,” Musk wrote in the August 7th tweet.

The go-private plan quickly fell apart. In the lawsuit, published by Bloomberg, the SEC accuses Musk of fabricating the claim made to 22 million social media followers, many of them investors. (Read More…)

Tesla Motors is currently offering up a bevy of incentives, even a few it once discontinued, in order to maximize deliveries before the end of the quarter. The brand has also reached out to enthusiastic owners who may want to help during its time of need, creating a weird sort of volunteer army for itself.

The company is desperate to prove to investors that Model 3 volume is making meaningful headway before its next shareholders meeting. As you’ll recall, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation after the Securities and Exchange Commission began a civil probe into Elon Musk’s August tweet about possibly taking Tesla private. The automaker also fired more than 3,000 employes over the summer and lost several important executives. It’s been a rough year for the brand, which makes having a good quarter all the more important.

While a significant portion of that battle is being waged at the factory, helped by simplified paint options and new car carriers, Tesla thinks it can move enough extra metal at its delivery centers to make up some of the difference.   (Read More…)

What a week it’s shaping up to be for Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Interestingly, if this latest report proves true, we can pin the blame for all of Musk’s misfortune over the past 24 hours on the presence of social media, and his tendency to overuse it.

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Justice Department has opened a fraud investigation into Musk’s infamous “funding secured” tweet — the online message that kicked off a strange journey that ultimately went nowhere. (Read More…)

A Silicon Valley resident had a big day yesterday. After finally revealing the real, live, human being he plans to stuff on top of a rocket for a journey around the moon, this same resident also received notice of a lawsuit filed against him. Big, big day.

What’s amazing about Vernon Unsworth’s libel suit is how completely avoidable it was. However, as we’re dealing with the mind of Tesla CEO Elon Musk here, the suit — which accuses Musk of libel, assault, and slander — seemed from the outset to be unavoidable. This is a man who goaded the litigant to sue even after apologizing for calling a man he’s never met a “pedo” on Twitter. Musk then forgot all about the apologies and doubled down on the unsubstantiated claim, even as Unsworth secured legal representation.

And why? Unsworth helped rescue a Thai soccer team from a flooded cave but had the nerve to criticise Musk’s homemade submarine, which rescuers never employed in the cave extraction. It’s enough to make one believe that only a certain type of personality makes it big in Silicon Valley. (Read More…)

Tesla’s Elon Musk announced Tuesday that the automaker will limit its paint options to simplify production and, hopefully, improve volume. “Moving [two] of [seven] Tesla colors off menu on Wednesday to simplify manufacturing,” said the CEO via social media. “Obsidian Black and Metallic Silver will still be available as special request, but at higher price.”

The announcement comes after a busy press week for Tesla. Musk lost his chief accounting officer after a comically brief tenure and was lambasted for smoking marijuana on Joe Rogan’s podcast. However, the real crime was how much of it Elon wasted by puffing on the monster wrap in an attempt to appease the host, without ever inhaling any smoke. That’s no way to get high.  (Read More…)

Big Tesla news inevitable comes at odd times, usually at the very end of the week, and most often at night — at least here on the East Coast. And so it was that late Friday afternoon, following another bizarre week of Elon antics (and two high-profile departures), Tesla CEO Elon Musk upset the negative news cycle by announcing a shakeup of his company’s upper ranks, including the appointment of a president of automotive.

What does a president of automotive do? A hell of a lot, it seems. Besides overseeing all of the company’s automotive operations, newly promoted Tesla veteran Jerome Guillen must also keep the sometimes dodgy supply chain running smoothly. His other big role involves removing stress from Musk’s life. (Read More…)

Today’s installment of “This Week in Elon” sees the Tesla CEO appear on the top-rated Joe Rogan Experience podcast and partake in drug consumption that’s legal in the state in which it was filmed. One hopes Musk didn’t pile into his Model S afterwards and drive away while baked.

Normally, what happens in an executive’s private life remains private until it hits the papers ahead of an impending trial, or perhaps fills the pages of a tell-all bestseller. This being Musk, however, questionable antics seem to occur all the time, usually in a public forum, and shareholders, analysts, and no doubt the company’s board aren’t too pleased with it.

It’s not on the same level as Lee Iacocca showing up on the Merv Griffin Show and railing a line of blow, but Musk’s podcast appearance, combined with two high-profile departures, sent Tesla shares tumbling. (Read More…)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the executive with a “Don’t Hold Back” sticker placed atop every one of his phone and computer screens, didn’t need to poke the bear last night. It seems there’s already a libel suit being loaded into the chamber, ready to fire in his direction.

In a Twitter exchange he could easily have avoided by tidying up around the house, preparing a wholesome snack, getting this owner the repairs he’s been waiting six months for, or perhaps reading one of Lee Iacocca or Bob Lutz’s books, Musk suggested, once again, that a British diver he’s already apologized to is a pedophile, again without offering evidence.

Asking why Vernon Unsworth hasn’t filed a lawsuit against him, Musk then practically dared the cave rescuer to sue. He’ll probably get his wish, especially after last night’s antics. (Read More…)

It’s all so exasperating. As I’ve said privately, if firefighters placed Tesla CEO Elon Musk next to any one of California’s devastating wildfires, he’d have immediately sucked up all the oxygen in the area, smothering the flames in an instant.

Is it any wonder why investors, analysts, and Tesla board members are reportedly bothered by CEO Elon Musk’s tweeting? While a recent New York Times interview provided an interesting, if troubled, glimpse into Musk’s life of late, the magic of social media provides a portal through which the entire globe can view Musk’s inner machinations.

Last night, Musk made the brilliant decision to tweet further (potentially libelous) speculation about a man he’s never met, but did once apologize to after calling him a pedophile on Twitter. Of course, this all came about after that man — Vernon Unsworth, the architect of a life-saving Thai cave rescue — dissed Musk’s homemade submarine and essentially told him to stuff it up his ass.

Hey, it’s not like Mary Barra, Jim Hackett, Mike Manley, Carlos Ghosn, Takahiro Hachigo, and Akio Toyoda don’t do the exact same thing in their off hours… (Read More…)

Friday night’s not-so-surprising move by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in which he wheeled around his plan to take the company private like an angry father cutting short a family vacation, has many angles.

First and foremost is the money factor, which matters more than anything else in this drama. According to two new reports, money eventually became available, just not from the sources we were led to expect. And not from sources Musk wanted. (Read More…)

Fear not, there’ll be plenty of moaning about short sellers in the weeks and months — and probably years — to come. Late Friday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk pulled an about-face, issuing a blog post in which he claimed a couple of weeks of study revealed he shouldn’t take his publicly traded automaker private.

Apparently, the trip from “funding secured” to “the funding totally would have been there”* (not a direct quote) takes 17 days. (Read More…)

Save for some uplifting production news, Tesla Motors is still fighting an uphill battle. CEO Elon Musk’s earlier claim that the company would go private has gotten him into trouble with the Securities Exchange Commission — since it looks as if the automaker hasn’t procured the necessary funding to make that happen.

However it doesn’t appear as if Norway’s sovereign wealth fund will be the outlet to pick up that tab. Trond Grande, deputy CEO of the Norwegian fund, declined to say whether Tesla had approached the fund about going private. “We don’t have a view on that,” he said before adding “We want to be invested in companies that make money.” (Read More…)

The correct ending to this headline should read “…We’d All Lose Our Lunch.” Especially this month.

Tesla investors are taking a wild ride of late, with CEO Elon Musk’s Aug. 7th “secured funding” tweet and subsequent stock spike giving way to a hands-in-the-air plunge as the funding for his go-private plan remains on the missing persons list. Couple that with a very concerning New York Times interview and increasing skepticism from analysts, and you’ve got the makings of a standout attraction at Six Flags. (Read More…)

We’ve got a treat for Tesla advocates today. Despite what seems like an attempt to surpass Volkswagen as the automaker to receive the most negative publicity in a single year, there remains a light in the darkness. Tesla may have finally sorted out its production issues with the Model 3.

Logistical problems had forced the company way behind schedule for most of 2018, making its goal of 5,000 units per week an unclimbable peak. But it finally managed to mount that hill and plant its flag in the final week of June. At the time, we had no idea if this was to be an isolated incident stemming from some divine automotive mercy or proof that Tesla had righted the ship.

While it not it did not experience a trouble-free July, the firm’s Fremont factory appears to be humming along at over 5,000 units per week now. What’s better is that analysts are now saying things are only looking up, estimating even higher output numbers in the months to come.  (Read More…)

It’s a portrait of a man who’s gone past fraying at the edges. In an hour-long interview with the New York Times, Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears as a man threatening to come apart — and it’s not a joyous sight.

Despite the frustration stemming from Musk’s actions and pronouncements, and the aggravation born of his cheerleading, conspiracy theorizing fan base, it’s difficult to watch a man’s ambition and drive spiral into self-destruction.  (Read More…)