8 ms·

On one hand, the $420 tweet was just blatantly obviously a bad idea and he should have known better. On the other hand, it feels... strange somehow that a joke

by burke 8y ago

On one hand, the $420 tweet was just blatantly obviously a bad idea and he should have known better. On the other hand, it feels... strange somehow that a joke (if a slightly deadpan one) has consequences this severe. It affected the markets and it obviously wasn't without real-world consequences in any case, but something about this all just feels a little off somehow.

bufferoverflow 8y ago
I wonder if they will be able to demonstrate that any damage was actually done. The $420 tweet had a reverse effect in the end, not what most people would expect from such a tweet.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  It has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread that several people holding short positions exited automatically when the stock price temporarily spiked. They were definitely harmed, and in fact are already suing in a separate case.
- mikestew 8y ago
  If I, a not-inexperienced investor, briefly wondered if I should by a few more lots of TSLA based on the tweet, it is not unfathomable that someone actually clicked the “buy” button somewhere near the peak. In short, yeah, it would be trivial to demonstrate damage. Someone was buying those pricey shares before the drop. EDIT: down $31 in after hours, hell, I’m thinking about suing. :-P
  - mrep 8y ago
    Same. I thought there was no way he say such a stupid thing as "funding secured" without haven't it locked down precisely because I thought the SEC would easily come after him if he lied about it. Fortunately, my brother talked me out of it but I was seriously considering buying some.
    - mikestew 8y ago
      because I thought the SEC would easily come after him if he lied about it Which is exactly it. Folks here and elsewhere refer to it as "...obviously a joke". No, it's not so obvious, because if you joke about such things the SEC will nail your ass to the wall. And hence my consideration of purchase. Were the SEC not to follow through, well, what are they going to say when the next joker says, "j/k"? And so, apologists and Musk themselves are about to find out that they're fucking serious when they tell you not to make bomb jokes in the airport security line. And when your antics take 10% off your share price in one day, Musk'll start to lose some fans even, because this shareholder sure isn't the Musk fan he once was.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        For me the turning point was when he joked Tesla was going bankrupt. It showed a complete misunderstanding of the role of the CEO in a public company as opposed to the CEO of a private company. You live in a glass house, that means you move with care and don't throw bricks around.
- compcoffee 8y ago
  >I wonder if they will be able to demonstrate that any damage was actually done. This case is unique in that both shorts and longs were harmed. Plenty to go around. How many people bought shares at ~$350 assuming they'd be private at $420 because the CEO said so?
- rohit2412 8y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/95otw7/just_borrowed_232k_at_600mo_interest_to_buy_623/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/95otw7/just...
  - mikestew 8y ago
    My ex-brother-in-law is the only reason I'd believe those stories aren't completely fictitious. I wonder if there's a formal psychological diagnosis for "thinks simple math is a genius system that everyone else missed". Because I had money, and EBIL didn't, he was always coming to me with shit like this. I don't know how many times I said something along the lines of, "if it's that easy, why isn't Goldman Sachs taking out loans for $200 million to buy TSLA shares?"
    - rohit2412 8y ago
      Because there is always a risk. It is a risk/return question. The risk is if Elon musk could be a misleading liar, and the return was 20%. Well the end result is that Elon musk is a manchild who deserves books thrown at him by SEC and DOJ.
henryfjordan 8y ago
Why is this a "joke"? Does a gaggle of teenagers running into a movie theater and yelling "fire!" constitute a joke? People might get seriously injured in the ensuing chaos. The same is (almost) true here, people lost money because of a tweet that was Musk was prohibited from making by law. There need to be consequences.
- burke 8y ago
  There's no amusement in yelling "fire!" in a theatre unless you enjoy watching people panic. I can imagine this striking him as "haha, wouldn't it be funny if..." and tweeting it out without thinking. I don't think that makes it okay, but it's easy to imagine it not being motivated by the same psychopathic intention as yelling "fire!" in a theatre. I'm not defending his behaviour; I guess part of my unease here comes from how a lot of people treat twitter as an externalized stream of consciousness, and how that has a strange interaction, especially with things like SEC rules.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  Please don't use the "fire in theatre" argument. It is one of the most misused arguments because yelling fire in a theatre, under Schenck v. United States, is (sorta) protected speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
  - henryfjordan 8y ago
    The article you quoted directly contradicts your assertion. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States > The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional > the First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging men to resist induction Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio > The Court held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
  - deleted 8y ago
matwood 8y ago
Read the complaint. It was not a single tweet, but a string of them leading investors to think a deal was all but done at that price. Musk's Twitter account was also registered with the SEC as an official channel for TSLA information. He fraudulently manipulated the stock. At this point, all that's left is negotiating punishment.
chooseaname 8y ago
He's the CEO. He can joke as Elon Musk but not as Tesla CEO. There's a difference.
twblalock 8y ago
> On the other hand, it feels... strange somehow that a joke (if a slightly deadpan one) has consequences this severe. It affected the markets and it obviously wasn't without real-world consequences in any case, but something about this all just feels a little off somehow. If it was legal to do stuff like this there would be a lot more stock manipulation than there is now, which would make the market worse for investors. The point of these regulations is that investors should have confidence that the price of a stock is based on the market's estimation of its value, that relevant information has been disclosed to the SEC, and so on. If people could not assume those things, investor confidence would decrease, and that would hurt the entire market. I also don't agree that Musk saw his tweets about Tesla going private as a joke. He made enough tweets that it affected the stock price. A CEO of a publicly traded company ought to know better.
ijpoijpoihpiuoh 8y ago
It wasn't a joke, it was a lie. Even if it were a joke, the word "joke" is not a get out of jail free card. There are consequences for breaking the law, even humorously.

by burke 8y ago

bufferoverflow 8y ago

I wonder if they will be able to demonstrate that any damage was actually done. The $420 tweet had a reverse effect in the end, not what most people would expect from such a tweet.

Analemma_ 8y ago
It has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread that several people holding short positions exited automatically when the stock price temporarily spiked. They were definitely harmed, and in fact are already suing in a separate case.
mikestew 8y ago
If I, a not-inexperienced investor, briefly wondered if I should by a few more lots of TSLA based on the tweet, it is not unfathomable that someone actually clicked the “buy” button somewhere near the peak. In short, yeah, it would be trivial to demonstrate damage. Someone was buying those pricey shares before the drop. EDIT: down $31 in after hours, hell, I’m thinking about suing. :-P
- mrep 8y ago
  Same. I thought there was no way he say such a stupid thing as "funding secured" without haven't it locked down precisely because I thought the SEC would easily come after him if he lied about it. Fortunately, my brother talked me out of it but I was seriously considering buying some.
  - mikestew 8y ago
    because I thought the SEC would easily come after him if he lied about it Which is exactly it. Folks here and elsewhere refer to it as "...obviously a joke". No, it's not so obvious, because if you joke about such things the SEC will nail your ass to the wall. And hence my consideration of purchase. Were the SEC not to follow through, well, what are they going to say when the next joker says, "j/k"? And so, apologists and Musk themselves are about to find out that they're fucking serious when they tell you not to make bomb jokes in the airport security line. And when your antics take 10% off your share price in one day, Musk'll start to lose some fans even, because this shareholder sure isn't the Musk fan he once was.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      For me the turning point was when he joked Tesla was going bankrupt. It showed a complete misunderstanding of the role of the CEO in a public company as opposed to the CEO of a private company. You live in a glass house, that means you move with care and don't throw bricks around.
compcoffee 8y ago
>I wonder if they will be able to demonstrate that any damage was actually done. This case is unique in that both shorts and longs were harmed. Plenty to go around. How many people bought shares at ~$350 assuming they'd be private at $420 because the CEO said so?
rohit2412 8y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/95otw7/just_borrowed_232k_at_600mo_interest_to_buy_623/ https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/95otw7/just...
- mikestew 8y ago
  My ex-brother-in-law is the only reason I'd believe those stories aren't completely fictitious. I wonder if there's a formal psychological diagnosis for "thinks simple math is a genius system that everyone else missed". Because I had money, and EBIL didn't, he was always coming to me with shit like this. I don't know how many times I said something along the lines of, "if it's that easy, why isn't Goldman Sachs taking out loans for $200 million to buy TSLA shares?"
  - rohit2412 8y ago
    Because there is always a risk. It is a risk/return question. The risk is if Elon musk could be a misleading liar, and the return was 20%. Well the end result is that Elon musk is a manchild who deserves books thrown at him by SEC and DOJ.

henryfjordan 8y ago

Why is this a "joke"? Does a gaggle of teenagers running into a movie theater and yelling "fire!" constitute a joke? People might get seriously injured in the ensuing chaos. The same is (almost) true here, people lost money because of a tweet that was Musk was prohibited from making by law. There need to be consequences.

burke 8y ago
There's no amusement in yelling "fire!" in a theatre unless you enjoy watching people panic. I can imagine this striking him as "haha, wouldn't it be funny if..." and tweeting it out without thinking. I don't think that makes it okay, but it's easy to imagine it not being motivated by the same psychopathic intention as yelling "fire!" in a theatre. I'm not defending his behaviour; I guess part of my unease here comes from how a lot of people treat twitter as an externalized stream of consciousness, and how that has a strange interaction, especially with things like SEC rules.
djsumdog 8y ago
Please don't use the "fire in theatre" argument. It is one of the most misused arguments because yelling fire in a theatre, under Schenck v. United States, is (sorta) protected speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
- henryfjordan 8y ago
  The article you quoted directly contradicts your assertion. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States > The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional > the First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging men to resist induction Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio > The Court held that government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
- deleted 8y ago

matwood 8y ago

Read the complaint. It was not a single tweet, but a string of them leading investors to think a deal was all but done at that price. Musk's Twitter account was also registered with the SEC as an official channel for TSLA information. He fraudulently manipulated the stock. At this point, all that's left is negotiating punishment.

chooseaname 8y ago

He's the CEO. He can joke as Elon Musk but not as Tesla CEO. There's a difference.

twblalock 8y ago

> On the other hand, it feels... strange somehow that a joke (if a slightly deadpan one) has consequences this severe. It affected the markets and it obviously wasn't without real-world consequences in any case, but something about this all just feels a little off somehow. If it was legal to do stuff like this there would be a lot more stock manipulation than there is now, which would make the market worse for investors. The point of these regulations is that investors should have confidence that the price of a stock is based on the market's estimation of its value, that relevant information has been disclosed to the SEC, and so on. If people could not assume those things, investor confidence would decrease, and that would hurt the entire market. I also don't agree that Musk saw his tweets about Tesla going private as a joke. He made enough tweets that it affected the stock price. A CEO of a publicly traded company ought to know better.

ijpoijpoihpiuoh 8y ago

It wasn't a joke, it was a lie. Even if it were a joke, the word "joke" is not a get out of jail free card. There are consequences for breaking the law, even humorously.