Tesla Never Quiet... "Investigation to Silence Musk's 'Government Criticism'"

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
Photo by Reuters

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] Tesla, led by CEO Elon Musk, has no quiet days. Following Musk CEO's surprise tweets and successive government investigations, claims have emerged that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is conducting investigations to silence Musk, who is critical of the Joe Biden administration.

On the 17th (local time), according to Bloomberg News and others, Alex Spiro, attorney for Tesla and CEO Musk, stated in a document submitted to Judge Alison Nathan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that "Because CEO Musk is openly criticizing the government, the SEC appears to have made Musk and Tesla constant targets of investigation."

The document submitted to the court came about a week after Tesla disclosed that it had received a subpoena from the SEC last November questioning whether CEO Musk complied with the terms of a settlement related to his social network service (SNS) activities. At that time, CEO Musk conducted a poll on Twitter asking whether to sell 10% of his Tesla shares, after which Tesla's stock price plummeted by more than 10%. The SEC reportedly began investigating this tweet, viewing it as a violation of the 2019 settlement between Musk and the SEC.

Regarding Musk's sudden tweet in 2018 about considering taking Tesla private, both parties went through legal procedures such as lawsuits and agreed that Musk would have some of his public statements, including SNS posts, pre-reviewed by the company.

Attorney Spiro argued that the SEC is unfairly exploiting the settlement, stating, "The SEC is breaking its promise and using the consent decree as a weapon to muzzle and harass Musk and Tesla." He also pointed out that the SEC has yet to distribute the $40 million (approximately 4.8 billion KRW) fine promised to Tesla shareholders.

On the same day, CEO Musk was again embroiled in controversy over a post on SNS. After media reports that Canadian authorities are investigating cryptocurrency donations to truck protesters opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates, Musk posted a tweet seemingly comparing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Adolf Hitler, which he later deleted. Bloomberg reported, "It is unclear whether Musk deleted the tweet himself or if it was removed at Twitter's suggestion."

Meanwhile, Tesla is under investigation by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) following consumer complaints about sudden unintended braking in electric vehicles. NHTSA announced it is investigating 416,000 units of 2021-2022 Model 3 sedans and Model Y sport utility vehicles (SUVs) after receiving over 350 complaints about unexpected sudden braking in some Tesla electric vehicle models.

The vehicles with consumer complaints are equipped with autonomous driving assistance features such as Autopilot. Autopilot is an automatic function that assists with braking, acceleration, and steering. NHTSA is currently investigating accidents involving Tesla vehicles equipped with the Autopilot feature. Tesla has not issued any specific statements regarding this matter.

Amid these adverse developments, Tesla's stock closed at 876.35, down 5.09% from the previous day. It is also showing further declines in after-hours trading.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.