Elon Musk is not a CEO like others.
from Tesla (TSLA) the head is atypical.
He refuses to obey the rules often imposed on managers of public companies.
The billionaire did not hesitate to relaunch the showdown with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) despite a 2018 settlement with the regulator.
In September 2018, the two sides agreed to end an investigation into a tweet by Musk, published on August 7, 2019, that caused Tesla’s stock price to fall.
“I’m considering taking Tesla private for $420. Financing secured,” the billionaire wrote at the time.
Ongoing tensions with the SEC
The tweet rocked Tesla shares. The SEC filed a complaint against Musk.
A settlement was reached and announced on September 29, 2018. It required Musk to step down as chairman of Tesla. Tesla and Musk agreed to pay $40 million in penalties. Tesla also agreed to have the company’s lawyers approve tweets containing material information about the company.
Last April, a federal judge in New York told the billionaire in a ruling that he would not end the agreement that required his social media posts approved by a company lawyer if they consisted of material information about Tesla.
Musk pushed back and said the previous agreement hindered his freedom of speech. He said the SEC used the settlement to “launch endless and limitless investigations” of his public statements.
“Neither argument holds up,” Judge Lewis J. Liman of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote in a ruling.
Few CEOs would risk attacking the SEC the way Musk does. These tensions also suggest that the billionaire values his uniqueness, and he just proved it once again.
On October 2, Tesla shareholder Ross Gerber wrote to Musk on Twitter, asking how investors should view Tesla, after the company unveiled on September 30 the progress of Optimus, the company’s humanoid robot . Musk’s response was scathing.
“I don’t mind raising the stock”
“Hi @elonmusk, I love discussing the long-term global economic implications of Optimus and how investors should see Tesla moving forward. $tsla,” Gerber posted on Twitter.
“I don’t mind raising the stock,” the billionaire replied. “But the economic implications are obvious.”
Very few CEOs would dare to make such a statement for fear of retaliation from their Board of Directors and a sanction from the markets. Not Musk, who sees himself as a visionary, not just an entrepreneur. He has made it his mission to transform civilization as it is today.
The tech mogul showed off a dancing Optimus on September 30, gesturing with one of its hands and bending its knees during Tesla AI Day. He promised a mass production of his robot as soon as possible.
Optimus will cost less than $20,000.
“Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible. We also designed using the same discipline we use in car design, which is to design for manufacturing, so that it is possible to make the robot. a high volume at low cost and high reliability,” said the billionaire.
Optimus will herald a “future of abundance,” Musk said. It will be “a future where there is no poverty, where people can have whatever they want, in products and services. It really is a fundamental transformation of civilization as we know it.”
However, the robot remains a work in progress.
Tesla will work in a variety of use cases, including cooking and gardening. Musk wants to replace human labor with humanoid robots, made from the artificial intelligence software used by Tesla for its cars.
