[Edward64]

Genius often comes with a price. Sucks to be Musk right now and Tesla's board.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...=technology-vp

Unfortunately, while doing these things may be totally normal by Elon Musk standards—and indeed, this kind of thing is part of what has made Musk beloved as a risk-taking entrepreneur—they might be tantamount to securities fraud if you happen to be the CEO of a public company proposing what would be the largest buyout in corporate history.

And so, yesterday, while much of the U.S. was held rapt by congressional hearings, the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped a doozy of a lawsuit. Among other things, the suit alleges that Musk had only the faintest outlines of the buyout when he went a-tweeting. Though he’d met with a sovereign wealth fund about a potential deal—the fund’s identity was not disclosed, but we know from other reporting it was Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund—he and the Saudis hadn’t even discussed a price when Musk went public with the idea.

Oh, and the price. According to the SEC, Musk came up with $420 “because he had recently learned about the number’s significance in marijuana culture.” The complaint quotes Musk saying that he figured his girlfriend at the time, the musician Grimes, “would find it funny, which admittedly is not a great reason to pick a price.”