The US Securities Market Commission (SEC) continues to investigate Tesla for the attempt in 2018 by Elon Musk, its CEO, to take the company out of the stock market. company and has requested information again, as revealed on Monday by the electric car manufacturer.
In documents filed with the SEC, Tesla said that on June 13 the agency that oversees the functioning of the stock markets requested information related to compliance with the agreement that the company and Musk reached in 2018 with federal authorities.
The agreement, which prevented the SEC from suing Tesla and Musk for fraud, established, among other conditions, the payment of two fines of 20 million dollars and that all the CEO’s tweets with information about the manufacturer be supervised by the company before your post.
Tesla said in those investor filings that the SEC’s requirements request information about its governance processes in connection with the deal that went into effect in 2019.
The company added that independently, in 2019, the United States Department of Justice requested information, also in relation to the agreement with the SEC, about Tesla’s IPO and the pace of production of the Model 3.
“We have not received any new requests from the Department of Justice on these matters since we provided information in May 2019,” he said.
In February of this year, Tesla also disclosed in investor filings with the SEC that the federal agency was investigating compliance with the 2018 deal.
That request for information came shortly after Musk asked on Twitter for his opinion on the sale of 10% of his shares in Tesla for the payment of taxes.
In 2018, Musk published a series of tweets in which he assured that he had obtained financing to buy all the shares of the manufacturer at a price of 420 dollars per share.
The operation would have taken Tesla out of the stock market. The tweets increased the value of Tesla shares, although it was later learned that Musk lied and never had the necessary financing to carry it out.
Musk is one of the main shareholders of Tesla, so the increase in the value of the shares benefited him directly.
The SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla for fraud, but reached an agreement with both to close the case that established that the manufacturer appoint a person in charge of verifying the businessman’s tweets before publication.