A tweet from Tesla chief executive Elon Musk could land the entrepreneur in hot water once again with the Securities and Exchange Commission, at least according to some pundits.
On Monday evening, Musk was asked what progress the company is making with its solar-powered roof tiles, which first presented to the world in October 2016 before SolarCity was purchased and effectively absorbed by Tesla.
Musk responded by tweeting “Spooling up production line rapidly. Hoping to manufacture ~1000 solar roofs/week by end of this year.”
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That tweet may sound innocent enough but Musk reached an agreement with the SEC earlier this year which prevents him from discussing Tesla-related production numbers on social media which haven’t been previously published by the company or been pre-approved by an experienced securities lawyer.
Spooling up production line rapidly. Hoping to manufacture ~1000 solar roofs/week by end of this year.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2019
Fortune conducted a review of Tesla’s 10-Q financial filings for the first and second quarters of 2019 and the 10-K for 2018 and found no mention of production numbers for Tesla’s solar roof panels. The car manufacturer’s financial filings list the solar energy business as a division of Tesla, meaning Musk’s tweet could be considered related to Tesla production.
“If that’s broken out as one of the business lines and he’s giving out numbers on the business line, that’s Tesla,” partner at law firm Dorsey Whitney, Thomas Gorman explained. “If he was talking about something separate, like the Solar City business [that Tesla acquired in 2016] we’re doing pretty good with the Solar City acquisition — that’s different. This is not a great argument and if they go back to court, the judge will not be happy. I would not like to defend that argument.”