SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private Deal

Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by MBCook on Thursday September 27, 2018 @09:54PM (#18090378)

Good news. He and his team had negotiated a settlement with the SEC. Then, for some genius reason, destroyed it.

https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1045472592595996672

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by prolikewh0a on Thursday September 27, 2018 @10:55PM (#18090635)

Billionaires don't go to jail.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by Animats on Thursday September 27, 2018 @11:09PM (#18090686)

Leona Helmsley, Federal Prisoner #15113-054.

Michael Milken.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by cheeze on Friday September 28, 2018 @12:52AM (#18091174)

> Although having initially received a sentence of sixteen years, she was required to serve only nineteen months in prison and two months under house arrest.

> Milken was sentenced to ten years in prison, fined $600 million, and permanently barred from the securities industry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. His sentence was later reduced to two years for cooperating with testimony against his former colleagues and for good behavior

How common is that for the common person? I'm not arguing that it isn't, I'm just not sure.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by Razengan on Friday September 28, 2018 @12:42AM (#18091147)

Unless they piss off other billionaires?

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by erikb on Friday September 28, 2018 @03:36AM (#18091640)

or the government

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by UpshotKnothole on Saturday September 29, 2018 @06:54AM (#18099723)

Billionaires don't go to jail.

How many billionaires publically break the law in the way that Musk did, and put themselves in the position to risk jail? How many billionaires are there to begin with?

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by TrainedMonkey on Thursday September 27, 2018 @06:13PM (#18089272)

SpaceX is national security launch services provider, no way he is going to jail.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by dabockster on Thursday September 27, 2018 @07:48PM (#18089866)

This is about Tesla, not SpaceX.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by garmaine on Friday September 28, 2018 @02:27AM (#18091428)

The dude is the CEO of both. He couldn't effectively run SpaceX from jail.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by UpshotKnothole on Thursday September 27, 2018 @06:15PM (#18089283)

Why not? SpaceX will tick along without him, and he won’t leak classified material because then the prison he’d be in would deep and dark indeed.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by mikeg8 on Thursday September 27, 2018 @07:44PM (#18089849)

Yea he’ll join all the other billionaires in jail. I would say he looks pretty guilty of fraud but agree he will never see a cell, just heavy fines. And spaceX may survive without him but losing musk would suck a ton of wind out of their sails.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by empath75 on Thursday September 27, 2018 @09:07PM (#18090226)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nacchio

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by cheeze on Friday September 28, 2018 @12:56AM (#18091186)

My understanding is that his imprisonment was questionable though, no?

> charges his defense team claimed were U.S. government retaliation for his refusal to give customer data to the National Security Agency in February, 2001

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by np_tedious on Thursday September 27, 2018 @09:21PM (#18090285)

Maybe if Elon had sold stock this would be in the realm of possibility.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by refoundglory on Thursday September 27, 2018 @08:36PM (#18090090)

Martha Stewart was a billionaire when she went to jail for insider trading.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by MrPatan on Friday September 28, 2018 @01:29AM (#18091280)

Did she go to jail for insider trading? Or for lying to the FBI?

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by FLUX-YOU on Thursday September 27, 2018 @06:29PM (#18089393)

I'm not so sure, one of the other space companies could start poaching talent and there's no way they can continue the government contracts with a huge loss of critical staff.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by bodas on Thursday September 27, 2018 @07:43PM (#18089844)

SpaceX is an extremely desirable company to work at, it's more NASA than NASA. Even without Musk that would remain the case. Talent squeeze is not a risk IMO.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by dabockster on Thursday September 27, 2018 @07:50PM (#18089870)

Yep. Musk is looking at possible insider trading charges. The DOJ will absolutely throw a rich guy in federal prison for that since the damage to the economy can be enormous.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by FighterMafia on Thursday September 27, 2018 @08:31PM (#18090064)

Hard to be insider trading if he didn't make any trades. Which he didn't.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by simongr3dal on Thursday September 27, 2018 @08:38PM (#18090096)

But he did make frivolous statements that affected the stock price of Tesla which can be seen as manipulating the stock market, which is a crime.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by brisance on Thursday September 27, 2018 @09:56PM (#18090390)

He may not have traded but his compensation is tied to the stock’s value. Which is a criminal offense since he is a direct beneficiary.

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Re:SEC Sues Musk and Seeks Ban for His Tweets on Go-Private ... by sfifs on Thursday September 27, 2018 @09:21PM (#18090286)

He may have not insider traded but market manipulation is also a crime. It is on record that Elon was looking to hurt short sellers and making materially false statements about the company can be easily argued to be a criminal act used to do so.

SEC Act - Sec 9(a)2 It is unlawful... or raising or depressing the price of such security, for the purpose of inducing the purchase or sale of such security by others.

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