Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have agreed to a new deal regarding his use of Twitter.
CNN reports that, on Friday, Musk and federal regulators agreed to amend the settlement deal they first reached in October 2018, which required Musk’s tweets to be overseen by a dedicated board. The amendments better define what Musk can – and can’t – tweet about.
Some topics that are off-limits include the financial condition of Tesla, production numbers or sales or delivery numbers, proposed or potential mergers, and new or proposed business lines.
Additionally, Musk’s tweets can’t relate to “nonpublic legal or regulatory findings or decisions,” nor any topic which the company or its board “may request” if they believe pre-approval of certain tweets will protect the interests of shareholders.
The previous agreement reached between Musk and the SEC simply required Musk to get pre-approval for social media posts containing information regarded as “material” to investors. Tesla implemented these requirements by allowing Musk himself to essentially decide for himself whether or not his tweets needed to be pre-approved before being published.
Under the new deal, Musk will only be able to tweet about the aforementioned topics if he gets pre-approval from an “experienced securities lawyer.”
The new deal does not specify any fines or punishments Musk could face if he fails to comply with those stipulations. Federal judge Alison Nathan also needs to approve the updated settlement before it can be implemented.
Musk initially got on the bad side of the SEC in August last year after claiming that Tesla could go private and that he had secured the funds for such a deal. He later backtracked, but this, along with a number of other tweets regarding the company’s annual output, enraged the Commission and investors, who claimed that they were misleading and, potentially, damaging.
