Tesla summoned to appear in SEC investigation on model 3

Tesla and CEO Elon Musk revealed Friday in a regulatory document that the Securities Commission has summoned Tesla to testify about Musk's numerous projections for the production of Model 3, signaling the beginning of the investigation – open for the first time in August -.

This is the third open survey to intensify in recent weeks. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the investigation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on any potential criminal activity surrounding the production objectives of Model 3 was amplified. On Friday, Tesla confirmed that, in a separate investigation by the Justice Department over Musk's unsuccessful attempt to take the company in private, he had been asked the company "to voluntarily provide [the DOJ] with information on "both criminal probes." This is in addition to the fact that former employees were summoned to appear in the FBI investigation.

"We believe that nothing has been done in this area, and to our knowledge, no government agency in an ongoing investigation has concluded to the existence of wrongdoing", said Tesla in the file. The company claims to be cooperating with the authorities and insisting the investing public so that it can not predict the outcome of investigations, while warning that they could have a "negative impact" on Tesla's business if one or several investigations resulted in coercive action.

Tesla and Musk recently settled with the SEC on a securities fraud case involving the CEO's privatization tweets. Originally, the agency was seeking to permanently ban Musk from holding a position as a director or director in a publicly traded company, not just in Tesla. But both sides eventually agreed to a three-year ban on his role as president of Tesla. The company and himself were fined $ 20 million.

The additional investigations that are ongoing come at a time when Tesla and Musk recorded the company's profitable first quarter in two years. In an interview with Recode Kara Swisher this week, Musk said that he spent about 80 to 90 hours a week at Tesla, which he considered "quite manageable" compared to the more than 100 weeks spent between him and others towards the end last quarter, which he called "atrocious".

"Tesla does not look death in the face. We are, I think, in a pretty good position, "said Musk. "We do not want to be complacent, but it's not … Until the month of September, we were really confronted, like:" We have to solve this problem or we are going to die ", all the time. we are no longer in the imminent death situation. "

Because the SEC initiates civil litigation, the burden of proof lies much less with the agency than if it decided to lay criminal charges against Tesla. But Tesla has some coverage in this area. In August, a court dismissed a shareholder lawsuit over the same problem of potentially misleading model 3 production figures, claiming that Tesla had correctly warned that his predictions were exactly what it was, easy targets that could be disrupted by a number of factors. (The case is not completely closed and the complainants filed an amended complaint at the end of September.)

In the interview with recoding, Musk rejected The Wall Street JournalReport of the Intensification of the FBI Investigation. He particularly contested the idea that "the FBI is getting closer", words that the newspaper did not use. "It's completely wrong. It's absurd. Print such a lie on the front page of a big newspaper is outrageous. Like, why are they even journalists? They are terrible. Terrible people, "said Musk.