3 ms·

>I could be wrong but I don't think that before the tweet there were any previous filings or announcements saying that Tesla would build 500,000 cars this year.

>I could be wrong but I don't think that before the tweet there were any previous filings or announcements saying that Tesla would build 500,000 cars this year. I'm fairly certain that during the Q4 2018 earnings call they talked about expecting to deliver between 350,000 and 500,000 cars in 2019. I'm not a lawyer, I don't know much about public companies or regulations, so I don't know if that counts or not (or if saying "500,000 in 2019" is hugely different than "between 350,000 and 500,000 in 2019"), but it's not like the 500,000 was never said before.

gamblor956 8y ago
The problem isn't that the 500k was never said before. The problem was that the original use of the 500k was part of a ranged estimate with a great deal of uncertainty (approximately 30-45%), but Musk's original problematic tweet eliminated all of that uncertainty. The elimination of uncertainty is material information to investors. And the original tweet was also simply wrong. Musk had to correct in a followup tweet about the 500k being an annualized rate.
- dd36 8y ago
  From the Tesla court filing: "As noted above, on January 2, 2019, Tesla filed a Form 8-K reporting its Q4 2018 production of “25,161 Model S and X vehicles, consistent with our long-term run rate of approximately 100,000 per year.” Then, during the January 30 Earnings Call, Musk stated that Model 3 production in 2019 would be on the order of “350,000 to 500,000” vehicles. Tesla similarly disclosed in its January 30 Update and February 19 Form 10-K that it was “targeting annualized Model 3 output in excess of 500,000 units sometime between Q4 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020.”" So 2019 production estimate was 450,000-600,000 and the SEC felt compelled to file for contempt over a tweet that said about 500,000 units... This is so frivolous, it's embarrassing.

gamblor956 8y ago

The problem isn't that the 500k was never said before. The problem was that the original use of the 500k was part of a ranged estimate with a great deal of uncertainty (approximately 30-45%), but Musk's original problematic tweet eliminated all of that uncertainty. The elimination of uncertainty is material information to investors. And the original tweet was also simply wrong. Musk had to correct in a followup tweet about the 500k being an annualized rate.

dd36 8y ago
From the Tesla court filing: "As noted above, on January 2, 2019, Tesla filed a Form 8-K reporting its Q4 2018 production of “25,161 Model S and X vehicles, consistent with our long-term run rate of approximately 100,000 per year.” Then, during the January 30 Earnings Call, Musk stated that Model 3 production in 2019 would be on the order of “350,000 to 500,000” vehicles. Tesla similarly disclosed in its January 30 Update and February 19 Form 10-K that it was “targeting annualized Model 3 output in excess of 500,000 units sometime between Q4 of 2019 and Q2 of 2020.”" So 2019 production estimate was 450,000-600,000 and the SEC felt compelled to file for contempt over a tweet that said about 500,000 units... This is so frivolous, it's embarrassing.