Tesla’s Elon Musk defended by fellow billionaire Mark Cuban amid ongoing SEC row

Elon Musk is getting support from fellow billionaire Mark Cuban, who recently took to Twitter to shield the CEO amidst his existing issues with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Cuban, who’s also butted heads with the SEC in the past, argued that the agency’s guidelines leave much to be desired, making it tricky to even know what an executive is allowed or not allowed to do.

“The thing is, if (the) SEC actually cared about reducing fraud they would publish bright-line guidelines that any company could find and understand. Then there would be no excuses.   Fraud would be fraud. Instead, they create regulations via litigation,” Cuban said on Twitter.

To illustrate his point, the billionaire investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks pointed to his experience with the agency. According to Cuban, he called the SEC to inquire about its regulations, and the agency literally led him to a letter from 1980 instructing him to fax eight copies of his question, and it would attempt to deal with his concerns. Cuban posted a movie of his conversation with the SEC, which he shared on YouTube.

Let’s say @elonmusk desired to know what was permissible for him to discuss, who would he ask? I called the SEC to ask a question. They sent me to a page that was a picture of a letter from 1980 asking me to FAX 8 copies of my question, and they would TRY to respond

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 15, 2019

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The billionaire reasoned that “if they really wanted to prevent fraud, they would publish every principle they use internally, with the obvious disclaimers.   They would push for real laws to be passed so that real penalties could be set in place. ” Instead, Cuban noted, what happens is something that is a lot closer to comedy.

If they really wanted to reduce fraud they would publish every principle they use internally, with the obvious disclaimers. They would push for real laws to be passed so that real penalties could be set in place. Instead you get humor like https://t.co/OkkMYoa82X

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 15, 2019

Cuban’s defense of Musk was a response to law professor Dan Ravicher, who condemned Musk’s contrary to the SEC on Twitter. Ravicher, who recently said on Twitter that “Tesla doesn’t sell cars, it sells promises of selling cars,” has a short position on the electric car manufacturer, admitting on March 11 that he is “deep in April $TSLA 280/250 debit put spreads. ”

Good trade. I'm deep in April $TSLA 280/250 debit set spreads.

— Dan Ravicher (@danravicher) March 11, 2019

Elon Musk’s latest row with the SEC came because of his tweets last February 19, when he noticed on Twitter that Tesla would make around 500,000 cars in 2019. The statement echoed among his statements from the first quarter earnings call when he estimated that Tesla could create “possibly in the order of 350,000 to 500,000 Model 3s” this season. A few hours after his initial tweet, Musk explained his statement, noting that the figures he quoted refer to the annualized production rate of 10,000 vehicles a week and that deliveries for 2019 are still estimated to be about 400,000.

The SEC immediately jumped on Elon Musk’s tweet, asking a judge to hold the CEO in contempt for violating the terms of his settlement with the agency after last year’s “funding secured” fiasco. Musk’s attorneys have since taken a firm stance against the SEC’s claims, noting in a response that “this contempt action, after Musk’s sincerely-held criticism of the SEC on 60 Minutes, also reflects about and unprecedented overreach on the part of the SEC. ”

Watch Mark Cuban’s inquiry session with the SEC in the movie below.

The post Tesla’s Elon Musk defended by fellow billionaire Mark Cuban amid continuing SEC row appeared first on TESLARATI.

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