Elon Musk Gives Ultimatum to Tesla’s Board: “Fight the SEC, or I Quit!”

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“Securities and Exchange Commission officials were understandably taken aback on Thursday morning when Tesla’s board — and its chairman, Elon Musk — abruptly pulled out of a carefully crafted settlement,” James B. Stewart reports for The New York Times. “After the S.E.C. responded by accusing Mr. Musk, but not the company that he had co-founded, of securities fraud, the board further defied regulators, issuing a provocative statement saying that the directors were ‘fully confident in Elon, his integrity, and his leadership of the company.’”

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“It was a stunning reversal: The board had rejected a settlement that was extraordinarily generous — it would have allowed Mr. Musk to remain as chief executive, and required him to step down as chairman for only two years. Now, the company was at risk of losing Mr. Musk as chairman and chief executive if regulators prevailed in court,” Stewart reports. “But Mr. Musk had given the board little choice: In a phone call with directors before their lawyers went back to federal regulators with a final decision, Mr. Musk threatened to resign on the spot if the board insisted that he and the company enter into the settlement. Not only that, he demanded the board publicly extol his integrity. On Saturday, the company and Mr. Musk finally agreed to settle the matter, ending a crisis that began with Mr. Musk’s now-infamous Twitter post saying that he had “funding secured” for a buyout at $420 a share.”