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SEC urged to “make an example” out of Elon Musk’s late Twitter filing 

Credit: Wall Street Journal/YouTube

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Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) might be facing off once again, this time over the Tesla CEO’s Twitter stake filings. 

Elon Musk allegedly committed filing violations while acquiring Twitter stock. By law, investors must notify SEC if they surpass 5% stake in a company within 10 days. According to a 13-D SEC filing, Musk passed 5% stake on March 14, but did not disclose his holdings until April 4. He should have disclosed his Twitter stake on or before March 24.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Stake Recap

To recap, a 13-G SEC filing was released on Monday, April 4, revealing that Elon Musk officially owned 73,486,938 shares of Twitter. The SEC filing also revealed that Musk owned 9.2% of Twitter stock, making him the single largest shareholder of the social media company. By Wednesday, April 6, Musk reclassified himself as an active investor of Twitter with the 13-D SEC filing. 

After the 13-D filing, talk of Musk joining the company’s Board of Directors circulated. A few days ago, Musk decided not to join Twitter’s Board of Directors. Joining the board would have limited Musk’s Twitter take to 14.9%. On April 11, the Tesla CEO updated his role in Twitter with an amendment to the 13-D filing, which stated that Musk could engage in Twitter strategy “without limitation.” 

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SEC’s Main Issue with Elon Musk’s Twitter Stake

The main issue seems to be that Elon Musk continued to purchase Twitter stock at $39 a share between March 14 to April 4. After the 13-G SEC filling revealed Musk’s 9.2% Twitter stake, the company’s stock price increased to more than $50 a share. 

Former SEC Chair Jay Clayton believes that SEC should investigate Musk’s Twitter gains. “I fully expect that the SEC is looking into this,” Clayton told Politico. The publication states that SEC’s new head Gary Gensler could force Musk to forfeit his gains between March 14 to April 4. 

“There is a real problem with folks filing the wrong files, and if they let Musk get away with this, then others may claim that there’s something known as selective enforcement,” noted former SEC head Harvey Pitt. 

An “Example” Out of Musk

Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business, stated that the SEC had failed to fully rein in Musk following his “funding secured” fiasco in 2018. The professor also stated that Musk’s delayed filings gave the CEO about $150 million. With this in mind, the SEC’s credibility could now be at stake with Musk’s delayed filing.

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“Sometimes securities law violations, or tax issues, or other things the wealthy do to entrench their wealth are in the gray areas, they are complicated. That makes it hard to prosecute them. Not this.”

“(The rule) is simple, every large public market investor knows it, and there’s no doubt Elon broke it — which is why it is such a gift for the SEC. The regulators need to make an example of someone,” Galloway said, later adding that “If you can put Martha Stewart in the big house, you can fine Elon $150 million.”

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, reach out to me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.

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Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Elon Musk

Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst

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elon musk phone
Photo: Boss Hunting.com.au

For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.

Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.

It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.

Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.

The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.

Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.

The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.

SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.

There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.

The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.

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Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.

The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.

On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.

Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD

It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:

“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”

This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.

It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something

There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features

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(Credit: Megan Gale/Twitter)

Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.

Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.

Here are the full release notes for the suite:

  • Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
  • Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
  • Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
  • Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
  • Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.

These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

He added:

“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”

Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.

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