Tesla revealed on Monday that the United States Securities Market Commission (SEC) is investigating whether the company and its CEO, the controversial Elon Musk, have complied with the agreement by which they avoided the accusation of fraud after a series of published tweets in 2018.
In the same documents filed with the SEC, the company also revealed that Californian authorities have warned them that they may file a civil lawsuit against Tesla for "racial discrimination and harassment".
After the media in the United States published information about the SEC investigation and the California notice, Musk published a tweet criticizing the media "traditional".
"Why is the ‘mainstream’ media a relentless source of hate? it’s a real question"Musk told his 73 million Twitter followers.
The documents that Tesla filed with the SEC indicate that the company received the subpoena about the agreement in November 2021, shortly after the businessman conducted a Twitter poll to determine whether he should sell 10% of his shares in the car manufacturer. electric cars.
SEC wants to know if Musk and Tesla have complied with the agreement reached in 2019 and that eliminated the accusation of fraud resulting from some tweets published by the businessman in 2018 in which he assured that he had obtained financing to buy the manufacturer’s shares at a price of 420 dollars per title.
The operation would have removed Tesla from the stock markets. With his tweets, Tesla shares increased in value, although it was later learned that Musk lied and never had the necessary financing to acquire the company’s shares.
The SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla for fraud but the two reached an agreement to close the case. Under the agreement, the manufacturer had to designate a person to verify the businessman’s tweets before they were published.
The deal also forced Musk to step down as Tesla chairman for three years and pay a $20 million fine.
Despite the agreement, in recent years, Musk appears to have been able to tweet freely and without anyone approving the content of his communications.
The SEC documents also indicate that on January 3, Tesla received a notification from the California state agency that enforces civil rights indicating that after an investigation, the company may face a civil lawsuit for discrimination and bullying.
The notification comes after Tesla was penalized by the courts for workplace harassment cases.
In October 2021, a jury awarded Owen Diaz, a former Tesla worker, $137 million for racial discrimination.
Another former employee, Melvin Barry, was also awarded $1 million in damages for racial discrimination.