Musk Says Tweet That Cost Him $20 Million Was ‘Worth It’
Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said he was signing off Twitter for a few days.
(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said he was signing off Twitter for a few days, shortly after tweeting that the $20 million penalty he was given for announcing on Twitter that he had funding to take the electric vehicle maker private was “worth it.”
His sign-off culminated a series of tweets that included an announcement about the release of autopilot drive on navigation.
Earlier this month, a U.S. judge approved Tesla and Musk’s $40 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over a probe of Musk’s August tweets about trying to take the company private. Musk agreed to pay a penalty of $20 million as part of the deal.
The SEC settlement required that Tesla implement mandatory procedures and controls to oversee all of Musk’s communications regarding the company in any format, including Twitter. It said any such written communications that contain information material to the company or its shareholders would need to be pre-approved.
Musk took to the social media service Friday, saying “on Twitter, likes are rare & criticism is brutal. So hardcore. It’s great.” A Twitter user wrote to him asking: “How about the one that cost you 20M, how was the ‘like’ ratio on that one?”. Musk responded to the tweet with “worth it.”
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To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chua Baizhen at bchua14@bloomberg.net, ;Andrew Monahan at amonahan@bloomberg.net, ;Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net, John McCluskey, Ken McCallum
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