- Elon Musk accused of illegally selling $7.5 billion in Tesla stock in Q4 2022.
- Lawsuit alleges Musk and board violated fiduciary duties by selling shares ahead of disappointing vehicle sales data.
- Shareholder seeks disgorgement of $3 billion in illegal gains and damages from directors for reckless behavior.
Isn’t that the definition of insider trading? Lock him up like Martha, she did way less and served time in a prison resort.
Felon Musk
That’s only the 5th time he commits fraud. He has been at court several times because of his actions. It seems no one really wants to arrest him
I need to look up how “insider trading” even works.
When you are the CEO, and you make decisions, and you own your own stock - wouldn’t everything you ever do be with insider info? It is just honor system pinky-promise to act in good faith? I mean that sounds super effective.
Normally you publicly say looong in advance, like at least half a year in advance, that you plan to sell this amount of shares at this point in time. No more, no less, not earlier, not later, no backsies.
Well no, there is backsies. You can rescind your intent to sell within a couple days. What most CEOs do is set up regular sells every month way in advance, then choose not to sell unless its opportune at the last minute. If that sounds like it completely defeats the purpose of the rule in the first place, yep! The system is rigged.
Wouldn’t say completely. The notice of intent to sell is not there to prevent CEOs from selling when they want to, it’s to notify you that they could sell this much if they wanted to.
The purpose is just to say that you need to be prepared for a potential sale. If the CEO keeps backing out of a sale, that does hurt your ability to predict when they will but not how much they could sell and therefore how much those sales could potentially affect your investment.
All of that is strategic because otherwise investors could conceivably do the opposite and sell before the CEO is forced to sell and then buy his shares at a lower price. That would mean the stock would tank every time the CEO went to sell. The problem exists because most of the solutions are even worse
The problem exists because most of the solutions are even worse
Everything you said makes a lot of sense, but this drives it home… The stock market is so unbelievably ridiculous. It’s just unmanageable, it’s such a simple idea with such horrible effects it might be a great filter
What a joyous year if we could get Trump and Elon in jail this year… They could be roomies!
Neither of them are going to prison. Trump’s judge explicitly said as much during his 10th contempt citation, and Musk has been pissing on the leg of the SEC for the last five years straight with no consequences.
So you’re saying they’re never getting their comeuppance?
Not under a Biden government, no
How could a CEO of any company trade his own stock from the company and not be insider trading?
The fact they are allowed to control stock is laughable… At best, stock from the company you control should be in a blind trust (which would still be laughable but we can at least pretend)
The SEC has already proved itself absolutely toothless. Even if it was illegal, who would prosecute?
