This could be logically be expected, and it will not be the ast one. I hope other short sellers will do the same: https://www.srnnews.com/lawsuit-accuses-teslas-musk-of-fraud-over-tweets-going-private-proposal/ Lawsuit accuses Tesla’s Musk of fraud over tweets, going-private proposal By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) – Tesla Inc and Chief Executive Elon Musk were sued twice on Friday by investors who said they fraudulently engineered a scheme to squeeze short-sellers, including through Musk’s proposal to take the electric car company private. The lawsuits were filed three days after Musk stunned investors by announcing on Twitter that he might take Tesla private in a record $72 billion transaction that valued the company at $420 per share, and that “funding” had been “secured.” In one of the lawsuits, the plaintiff Kalman Isaacs said Musk’s tweets were false and misleading, and together with Tesla’s failure to correct them amounted to a “nuclear attack” designed to “completely decimate” short-sellers. The lawsuits filed by Isaacs and William Chamberlain said Musk’s and Tesla’s conduct artificially inflated Tesla’s stock price and violated federal securities laws. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the proposed class-action complaints filed in the federal court in San Francisco. The company is based in nearby Palo Alto, California. Short-sellers borrow shares they believe are overpriced, sell them, and then repurchase shares later at what they hope will be a lower price to make a profit. Such investors have long been an irritant for Musk, who has sometimes used Twitter to criticize them. Musk’s Aug. 7 tweets helped push Tesla’s stock price more than 13 percent above the prior day’s close. The stock has since given back more than two-thirds of that gain, in part following reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had begun inquiring about Musk’s activity. Musk has not offered evidence that he has lined up the necessary funding to take Tesla private, and the complaints did not offer proof to the contrary. But Isaacs said Tesla’s and Musk’s conduct caused the volatility that cost short-sellers hundreds of millions of dollars from having to cover their short positions, and caused all Tesla securities purchasers to pay inflated prices. Tesla’s market value exceeds $60 billion, and its shares closed Friday up $3.04 at $355.49. According to his complaint, Isaacs bought 3,000 Tesla shares on Aug. 8 to cover his short position. The proposed class period in Isaacs’ lawsuit runs from the afternoon of Aug. 7 through the next day, and in Chamberlain’s lawsuit runs from Aug. 7 to Aug. 10. The cases are Isaacs v Musk et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 18-04865; and Chamberlain v Tesla Inc et al in the same court, No. 18-04876. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Peter Henderson in San Francisco; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, Toni Reinhold)
Even the Tesla board did not know anything about taking Tesla private: Tesla's board seeking more information on Musk's financing plan - sources Carl O'Donnell, Liana B. Baker (Reuters) - Tesla Inc’s (TSLA.O) board has not yet received a detailed financing plan from CEO Elon Musk, and is seeking more information about how he will take the U.S. electric car maker private in a proposed deal worth $72 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. While Tesla’s board has held multiple discussions about Musk’s proposal, which first became public on Tuesday, it has not yet received specific information on who will provide the funding, one of the sources said. Tesla declined to comment. Musk, a 47-year-old investor and engineer, stunned financial markets on Tuesday, when he revealed on Twitter he was considering a take-private deal for Tesla, an auto manufacturing pioneer that developed the world’s first ever premium all-electric sedan car. The move came after months of Musk battling investors, journalists and analysts over whether Tesla could turn a profit and produce enough of the mass market model of is flagship electric car to meet demand. Musk said in a tweet on Tuesday that he had secured financing for the deal, but he did not publicly provide further details. Speculation has swirled among shareholders and investment bankers about who could fund a deal of that size, especially given that the company’s bonds are already rated junk by credit rating agencies. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has contacted Tesla to ask about Musk’s assertion on Twitter that funding for his proposed deal was “secured”, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The revelation that the board is seeking more details from Musk could raise new questions about how he plans to finance the deal at his proposed price of $420 per share. After jumping to close at $379.57 on Tuesday, Tesla shares have since fallen about 7 percent to end trading at $352.45 on Thursday, amid investor skepticism over the deal’s prospects. In a statement on Wednesday, Tesla’s board said its discussion with Musk “addressed the funding” for the deal, without offering more details. The board expects to make a decision on whether to launch a formal review of Musk’s proposal in the coming days, and is speaking to investment bankers about hiring financial advisers to assist it in its review in such scenario, the sources said. If the board launches a formal review of Musk’s bid, he would have to recuse himself, or a special board committee would have to be formed, according to the sources, who requested anonymity because the deliberations are confidential. The exact information that Musk communicated to the board about his plan could not be learned. Taking Tesla private would remove the pressure from Musk coming from hedge funds betting that the company’s stock will drop given its production issues and negative cash flow, as well as the glare of Wall Street that comes with reporting quarterly earnings publicly. The company faces a make-or-break moment in its eight-year history as a public company as competition from European automakers is poised to intensify with new electric vehicles from Audi and Jaguar, with more rivals entering the market next year. Tesla is still working its way out of what Musk called “production hell” at its home factory in Fremont, California, where a series of manufacturing challenges delayed the ramp-up of production of its new Model 3 sedan on which the company’s profitability rests. Meanwhile, Tesla has announced plans to build a factory in Shanghai, China, and another in Europe, but details are scarce and funding unknown. DIFFICULT TO FINANCE Musk has said he would be looking to keep his ownership of Tesla at around 20 percent in a buyout deal, and that a special purpose vehicle, like the one that exists at his aerospace company SpaceX, would allow Tesla shareholders to remain invested if they so choose. Investment bankers and analysts have reacted with skepticism, telling Reuters it would be hard for Musk, whose net worth is pegged by Forbes at $22 billion, to raise the equity and debt financing needed for the deal given Tesla is not turning a profit. Some analysts have suggested that Musk could convince Tesla’s top shareholders, such as Fidelity Investments and China’s Tencent, to roll their equity stakes into the deal, thereby significantly reducing the amount of money needed to be raised. However, the deal structure would come with big logistical and legal challenges when it comes to buying out smaller shareholders, analysts have said. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has taken a stake of less than 5 percent in Tesla, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. It is not clear if PIF is interested in financing Musk’s proposed take-private deal.
I'll bet you one big fat joint that Tesla wont hit $420 by April 20th next year. That tweet was a blazed CEO showing his buddies over bong tokes he could squeeze the shorts, and it worked, for now.
They also claimed that he told this to the board a few days earlier (I would like to see the board notes), so they were in advanced negotiations about it with both the board AND the possible financer. Not to mention did they advanced suddenly in the last 7 days since the Earnings call? You know where a CEO would mention such an irrelevant thingy like this? Look, that he broke SEC laws wasn't just my idea, but pretty much everybody's on CNBC and Fox Business (Charlie Gasparino, whom I don't even like)
Only on market manipulators, idiots and liars. By the way the "we vs. them" and "every critic is a hater" are typical cultist behaviors.
Well just so you know I don't care for Musk or peckers who obfuscate. And real lying haters are a cult apart.
alright, I will prove you wrong. I was about to concede that I should have used past sense not present, but then I looked into the FACTS, and I happen to be right, surprise, surprise. I didn't say SpaceX only does government contracts. I said they survive on it. Now if we look into their payloads, 30% was NASA and another 7.7% was US military and other government. So 38% of their revenue source coming from Uncle Sam. For a company that is most likely just breaking even, losing almost 2/5th of their orders would mean they go under. And let's not foeget the government likes to over pay ($400 hammers anyone?) but a commercial costumer won't over pay if they can get other space company to take up their satellites. Thus I stand still correct, SpaceX still survives on US government contracts. Read the provided Reddit article and following discussion. A look into their "profitability": https://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusive-peek-at-spacex-data-shows-loss-in-2015-heavy-expectations-for-nascent-internet-service- https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/05/how-profitable-is-spacex-really.aspx
Short seller sues Tesla, Elon Musk, claiming buyout tweets were fraudulent Expect more lawsuits if Musk can't prove he has funding lined up. Timothy B. Lee - Aug 11, 2018 11:50 am UTC Enlarge / Elon Musk in 2016. PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images 231 Three days after Elon Musk tweeted that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private, we still don't know who, if anyone, has agreed to provide the billions of dollars needed to buy out the company. But plaintiffs' lawyers aren't waiting any longer for Musk to provide more details. On Friday, stock trader Kalman Isaacs filed a class-action lawsuit arguing that Musk's Tuesday tweets constituted securities fraud. The lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, appears to be the first one claiming that Musk's Tuesday tweets violated federal securities law. At the time of Musk's tweet, Isaacs was short at least 3,000 shares of Tesla stock. That means that, at some point prior to Musk's tweet, Isaacs had borrowed Tesla shares and sold them, betting that the price would fall and he would eventually be able to buy them back at a discount, pocketing the difference. Further Reading There’s a big problem with Elon Musk’s plan to take Tesla private The flipside, however, was that Isaacs lost money if Tesla's stock rose—$3,000 for every dollar increase in the stock price. If Musk really did close a $420-a-share buyout deal, Isaacs would have needed to come up with around $420 for each of those 3,000 shares. So on Wednesday, Isaacs panicked and closed out his short position early by buying Tesla shares at the then-current price of $376. But Isaacs now believes that Musk's tweet was false—that Musk doesn't actually have funding secured. And if that's true, he argues, then Musk violated US securities laws, which prohibit a CEO from spreading false or misleading information about a company in order to manipulate its stock price. “Short position” explosion? Isaacs argues that that's exactly what Musk was trying to do with his tweet. He notes that Musk has long taunted short-sellers like himself on Twitter. In mid-June, for example, Musk tweeted that short sellers "have about three weeks before their short position explodes"—presumably referring to the end of the second quarter, when Musk planned to prove doubters wrong by achieving a production rate of 5,000 vehicles per week. If Musk's buyout tweets prove to be false—and we should emphasize here that we don't know yet—then they likely cost Isaacs tens of thousands of dollars, since they forced him to buy shares at an inflated price. By the close of trading on Friday, Tesla shares had already fallen to $355. If Isaacs kept his short positions open, he would be at least $60,000 richer. Isaacs isn't just suing on his own behalf; he's seeking approval to become the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit representing all Tesla shareholders who traded after Musk's tweet on Tuesday or at any time on Wednesday. This is a common tactic in the world of securities legislation, according to William Sjostrom, an expert on securities law at the University of Arizona. "There's this huge culture of these securities plaintiffs' firms," Sjostrom told Ars on Wednesday—before Isaacs' lawsuit was filed. Sjostrom said that "firms are geared up to file suits immediately," often using "cookie-cutter complaints." Sometimes, defendant companies will settle these lawsuits for a modest sum, including a few million dollars to the plaintiffs' attorneys. But the stronger a case is, the more likely plaintiffs will take the case to court and seek more significant damages. And the risk to Tesla will be much bigger if Musk cannot prove that he had funding secured when he made his Tuesday tweet.
Elon Musk has done the shorts (including Put option holders and other bearish instrument traders) a big swinging favor. I don't think it's an exaggeration to label his fateful tweet "utterly suicidal" because not only did he create an artificial, unsustainable high price for smart money to go short after the tweet and buy back at panic lows after fallout, he offered profits and free plays for many traders who would otherwise have come out flat. Worse, with fraud, punitive damages apply on top of compensatory damages (usually 1x to 9x the latter). Depending on materials obtained through discovery, plaintiffs might have a chance to pierce the corporate veil and go after Elon Musk's personal assets. In a worst case scenario, some BOD members may get dragged into this. Are you serious? You can't possibly be this naive, ignorant and devoid of common sense, right? Do you read or watch the news? That's another lie. You sound angry in your posts about mere companies. Seems like a sign of emotional attachment to SpaceX or Tesla or Elon Musk. Easy. Just buy more TSLA next week. Heck, bet the farm on it. Use margins liberally. Come back and gloat in a few months if you managed to make a profit. LOL. Seriously, how successful are you in trading / investing over the years? Be honest to yourself.
I read a few days ago an article from another "expert" organisation like yours. I don't keep these articles as I don't waste too much time on Tesla. They wrote that REAL FULL autonomous driving cars will not have over 50% of marketshare before 2065-85. Which will bring the target from 5 years closer to 50 years... It appears that the third and last stage to accomplish is very diificult. We have seen the disaster with the Autopilot from Tesla, that is nothing more then a marketing strategy. The driver should always keep control over the car? Why do you then need Autopilot. Bitcoin believers had targets for 2018 too, going from 20K to even over 100K. Targets are only good if they are reached.