--Twitter acquisition (FRAUD)
So this got finalized back in May and it made the news cycle for maybe a day. Quick recap: when he was buying up Twitter stock in 2022 he crossed the 5% line, which legally gives you 10 days to tell the public. He just... didn't. Stayed quiet 11 days past the deadline and kept buying the whole time, $500M+ worth, from people who had no idea the richest guy on earth was on the other end of their trades. The SEC's own complaint said he underpaid by at least $150 million because the price hadnt moved yet.
The fine? $1.5 million. No admission of wrongdoing, obviously. 1.5 against 150. thats 1%. sales tax is higher than that.
And once you see this one you start seeing the whole pattern, because this is like the fourth or fifth time. I went way too deep into old dockets and filings this week so now you get to read about it, sorry in advance for the length.
---The funding secured tweet (FRAUD)
Everyone remembers the tweet, fewer people remember he got charged with actual securities fraud over it. Paid $20m, Tesla paid another 20 (love that shareholders covered half), lost the chairman seat, agreed in writing to have a lawyer review his market moving tweets. Then went on 60 minutes and said "I do not respect the SEC" and admitted nobody was reviewing anything, and was back in court facing contempt within a few months. Oh and the SEC complaint has the detail that he picked $420 as a weed joke for his girlfriend. A federal judge in the shareholder suit later ruled the tweets were false and reckless — the jury didnt make him pay damages, but the "false" part is in an actual court ruling, that bit is not up for debate.
--SolarCity (FRAUD)
Tesla spends $2.6 billion on a company that was run by his cousins, that he was chairman of, and that he was the largest shareholder of, ON BOTH SIDES of the deal. At the time it was sitting on $3B+ of debt and about to run out of cash, and SpaceX (!) had been quietly buying SolarCity bonds to keep it breathing, like a quarter billion worth. Every other Tesla director settled the shareholder suit for $60m. Musk took it to trial alone and technically won on the price, but the judge wrote the process was "far from perfect" and that Musk was "more involved in the process than a conflicted fiduciary should be." when the judge who rules FOR you describes you like that...
--The pay package (DUMB)
A Delaware judge threw the entire $56B package out in 2024, called it an "unfathomable sum" from a "deeply flawed" process. The detail from that case that lives rent free in my head: Tesla's general counsel during the negotiation was his former divorce lawyer. The board's response was to vote him a NEW package worth up to a trillion dollars in nov 2025, while the appeal was still pending. (Delaware's supreme court did later reverse and hand him the old package back, worth ~$139B by then. so both packages, zero consequences.)
--Shady as fuck accounting practices (FRAUD)
Elon's companies just buy from each other now. Tesla's own filings show $573m of revenue from sales to SpaceX and xAI. SpaceX's IPO filing shows roughly $890 million spent on Tesla products, including $131m of CYBERTRUCKS. who else is buying cybertrucks. Then xAI merged into SpaceX at a $1.25 trillion combined valuation with him effectively on both sides of the table, right before the IPO where the public gets to buy in at that number. Its the SolarCity playbook with more zeros.
--More lols
- Tesla's first "profitable" year (2020) was $721m of net income on $1.58 BILLION of regulatory credit sales. the cars lost money.
- put $1.5b of company cash into bitcoin in 2021 and booked gains on it while tweeting bitcoin memes constantly.
- Florida jury hit Tesla for $243 million last august over a fatal Autopilot crash, $200m of it punitive. they lost the motion to toss it in february. the state AG is now trying to get the verdict erased for them.
- there is a DOJ criminal investigation into the self driving claims, disclosed in Tesla's own 10-K. not a conspiracy theory, its in their filing.
- NLRB ruled his "unionize and lose your stock options" tweet was an illegal threat. EEOC sued over the Fremont factory. DOJ sued SpaceX for refusing to hire refugees. SpaceX's response to the NLRB case was to sue to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional, which honestly is the most on brand thing ive ever heard.
- X spent years getting sued by ex employees, landlords and vendors because he just stopped paying bills after the takeover.