Investor's Corner
Tesla’s Elon Musk faces the SEC in hearing over contempt charges (Updates)
The day after the release of Tesla’s Q1 vehicle delivery and production report, CEO Elon Musk headed to a Manhattan courthouse to face the charges leveled against him by the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC accused Musk of violating the terms of his settlement with the agency when the CEO tweeted on February 19 that Tesla will produce around 500k vehicles in 2019, echoing one of his statements from the Q4 2018 earnings call.
Musk arrived in the courthouse on Thursday in light spirits. Smiling to cameras, the Tesla CEO told reporters that he respects the American justice system. “I have great respect for the justice system and I think the judges in the American system are outstanding,” Musk said. When prompted by veteran CNBC reporter Phil LeBeau if he feels the same way about the SEC, Musk laughed and walked forward.
The SEC’s arguments
The courtroom was packed as Elon Musk and the SEC’s legal team faced off before U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan. Each side is given 45 minutes to express their arguments. The agency went first, represented by SEC attorney Cheryl Crumpton, who immediately claimed that Musk “recklessly tweeted out information that has no basis in fact (credit to Matt Robinson of Bloomberg, who is currently conducting a Live Blog of the hearing).”
Explaining further, Crumpton stated that the requirement that Musk get pre-approval for his tweets was “the heart of the relief” that the government had sought as part of its settlement. The SEC lawyer also noted it has become pretty clear “over the course of the last few weeks” that Musk does not intend to comply with last year’s settlement terms. Crumpton added that the agreement does not require every single tweet to be pre-approved, provided that the information in the posts was immaterial. “The communication we are talking about here is very, very different,” she said.
The SEC lawyer also pointed the blame to Tesla, who allegedly is failing to control the conduct of its CEO. “Tesla’s conduct is also troubling to the SEC. This court ordered Tesla to implement a mandatory pre-approval process, but they are apparently fine with Mr. Musk making up his own procedure. Tesla still seems unwilling to exercise any meaningful control over the conduct of its CEO,” Crumpton replied.
Judge Nathan, for her part, asked the SEC lawyer if Musk would need to get approval for tweets that reiterated information that had already been disclosed. The judge went through different hypotheticals with the SEC lawyer, such as repeating earlier guidance. “We’re not saying always yes or always no to that. It depends is the answer,” Crumpton said.
“This is a material statement no matter how you cut it, and it was a violation to not get it pre-approved,” Crumpton added.
For his alleged violations of his settlement, the SEC lawyer called on the court to give Musk a series of escalating fines if he continues to violate the order. Crumpton also stated that the SEC wants the court to order Musk to report monthly on his compliance with the settlement. “We want the court to tell them that this has to observed in the way that it’s written,” the SEC lawyer said.
Response from Tesla’s legal team
With the SEC having completed its argument, it was time for Elon Musk’s legal team to argue their points. Tesla lawyer John Hueston stated that “it’s very clear that Mr. Musk retained discretion in the policy. The policy makes clear that the tweet is subject to a fact-based determination by Mr. Musk.” The Tesla lawyer also stated that Musk’s decision to decide what’s material information was negotiated. “That’s exactly what Tesla negotiated for and got,” Hueston said.
The Tesla lawyer also argued that the SEC is currently pretending to be shocked that Musk gets to decide what is material information and what is not, but that is exactly what the the order says. “They agreed to take out language saying that everything has to be approved. There has to be an oversight process and there is an oversight process. They’re not happy about that today,” he said.
Musk’s legal team stated there is not a clear enough standard to use the harsh recourse of contempt. Instead, Hueston stated that the SEC should have attempted to work things out with Elon Musk and Tesla before bringing the matter to court. “What the SEC should have done was approach in good faith and try to work things out,” the Tesla lawyer said. In response, Judge Nathan noted that her intent is “not only to invite it but to order it.” The judge also added that she will tell the parties to create a new agreement that incorporates the SEC’s concerns.
Addressing Musk’ counsel, Judge Nathan inquired about a scenario in which the CEO will be violating the terms of his settlement with the SEC. When the Tesla lawyer noted that he couldn’t think of one, the judge replied “You’re not very imaginative.”
Continuing his points, Hueston noted that the 15 post-order tweets that were cited by SEC as proof of Musk’s violation of his settlement shows that the agency believes “that, apparently, contempt can fall on him for things that he’s tweeting” even if the information had already been disclosed. “They have not shown that the proof of non-compliance is clear and convincing. This is not someone who’s wantonly saying he doesn’t care about processes and procedures. That’s someone who is trying his best to comply and has been diligent,” the Tesla lawyer said (credit to Bloomberg‘s Chris Dolmetsch for the update).
The SEC’s Rebuttal
The SEC lawyer returned stating that the agency did not rush into its request to have Musk held in contempt at all. “Its not that we rushed into court on the first opportunity. There have been a number of tweets over time.” Crumpton further added that the SEC assumed Musk will comply with the terms of his settlement despite his statements in 60 Minutes, where he explicitly commented that he does not respect the SEC.
Hearing Adjourned
Following the SEC’s rebuttal, Judge Nathan asserted that compliance with court orders is not optional, nor is it a game, regardless of whether you are a “small potato or a big fish.” She also noted that government lawyers must take all steps necessary to reach a resolution before invoking contempt, before adding that she has “serious concerns that whatever I decide here the issue will not be finally resolved.”
Judge Nathan ordered the two parties to arrange a meeting and send a letter to the court within two weeks. The parties will be required to indicate if they have reached an agreement or not. If no agreement is reached then, Elon Musk’s legal team and the SEC will hear from her in due course.
The hearing was adjourned after. In a statement following the hearing, Musk stated that he was “very impressed with Judge Nathan’s analysis.”
Featured
Tesla Cybercab is coming to Asia this month as US service officially begins
Tesla Asia says Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai this month.
Tesla’s Cybercab is heading to Asia. The official Tesla Asia account posted on X Thursday, inviting Cybercab fans to “Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.” The post went up within hours of Tesla’s own Cybercab milestone in Texas, where the company said Thursday it had begun offering rides in across Austin.
Exact dates and venues for the Asia tour haven’t been released yet, though Tesla Hong Kong replied to the announcement with “Cybercab will be on display in Hong Kong soon,” while Tesla Japan’s response pointed fans to a sign up page for updates. Neither post mentions test rides or a service area, and nothing so far suggests Tesla is launching Robotaxi operations in any of the four cities. Based on how Tesla has run past Cybercab tours, in Europe in late 2024 and at US shopping centers that same December, the Asia stops are almost certainly static displays at Tesla stores or public venues as a means to stimulate buzz for its future driverless ride-hailing service in the big cities.
Cybercab will be on display in Asia this month!
Come experience the future of autonomy in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai. pic.twitter.com/wGmmEastfX— Tesla Asia (@Tesla_Asia) September 4, 2026
The timing lines up with Tesla’s only prior Cybercab appearance in the region, a booth at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai last November, which Teslarati covered at the time. At that event, Tesla’s regional general manager for Shanghai framed the car as evidence of the company’s broader mission, a message Tesla has since formalized in its Master Plan Part IV, which states that “autonomous vehicles have the capacity to dramatically improve the affordability, availability and safety of transportation while reducing pollution, particularly in our increasingly dense global cities.” The same document is where Tesla lays out its “sustainable abundance” framing for Cybercab and Optimus alike, describing the two as the hardware behind an AI driven push to cut the cost of transportation and labor at scale.
Whether Cybercab actually operates as a robotaxi anywhere in Asia remains an open question, considering China has already pushed an autonomous ride-hailing market that’s run on homegrown players like Baidu’s Apollo Go and Pony AI. For now, the four city tour reads as a marketing push timed to Austin’s momentum.
Elon Musk
OpenAI cites distrust of SpaceX in decision to drop Cursor partnership
OpenAI will cut SpaceX-owned Cursor’s model access in November, citing Musk’s history of broken contracts.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced late Friday that it is ending its partnership with Cursor, cutting off the coding tool’s access to its models on November 12. The move comes two weeks after SpaceX completed its $60 billion acquisition of Cursor’s parent company, Anysphere, folding the popular AI coding assistant into Elon Musk’s growing SpaceXAI division.
In a post on its website, OpenAI said the decision came down to trust, not technology. “We cannot be confident that SpaceX will use our technology within our terms of service, based on our experience with Elon Musk’s companies violating contracts,” the company wrote. OpenAI pointed to two specific incidents: X, now part of SpaceX, allegedly breaking the terms of an existing OpenAI contract after Musk bought Twitter.
That lawsuit is the backdrop for all of this. Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015, left the board in 2018, and sued Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, arguing they abandoned the company’s nonprofit mission for profit. A federal jury sided with OpenAI in May, finding Musk waited too long to sue rather than ruling on the merits of his claims. Musk said at the time he would appeal to the Ninth Circuit, calling the outcome a “calendar technicality” rather than a real judgment.
SpaceX’s interest in Cursor predates that verdict by weeks. The company first struck a deal with Cursor in April, securing an option to acquire it for $60 billion or pay $10 billion for joint development work instead. As Teslarati reported at the time, the logic was straightforward: Cursor was paying retail prices to Anthropic and OpenAI, two of its most direct competitors, every time a developer used its product, while SpaceX had idle capacity on its Colossus supercomputer, roughly the equivalent of a million Nvidia H100 GPUs, that Cursor could use to train its own models instead. SpaceX exercised the option in June, days after its own IPO, and the deal closed in mid-August.
Once it closed, Musk moved fast. On an all-hands call with more than 1,000 Cursor employees, he reportedly told staff that SpaceXAI’s Grok was playing catchup in the AI race, unlike Tesla and SpaceX in their own markets, and singled out Anthropic as the company to catch. Cursor CEO Michael Truell now reports directly to Musk inside SpaceXAI.
Losing OpenAI’s models leaves Cursor leaning harder on Anthropic’s Claude, which has its own compute agreement with SpaceX, and on Cursor’s in-house Composer model, the one SpaceX’s compute was supposed to accelerate in the first place. OpenAI framed the November deadline as maximum notice under its contract, and said it wants to “go above and beyond” to help developers through the transition. Whether Anthropic makes the same call is now the open question in AI coding.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Robotaxi gets a massive upgrade in Nevada
Nevada regulators just approved a massive expansion of Tesla’s robotaxi fleet across the entire county.
Tesla’s robotaxi footprint in Nevada just grew by roughly 500 times in a single regulatory vote.
The Nevada Transportation Authority approved Tesla’s full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit on Thursday, clearing the way for the company to deploy up to 5,000 driverless vehicles across Clark County over the next 12 months. The decision came during a four hour general session meeting that Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt watched live and reported on X, noting the vote replaces the interim order that had limited Tesla to just 10 robotaxis on a narrow stretch of the Las Vegas Strip.
EXCLUSIVE: Tesla has just officially received approval for its full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada, clearing the way for Tesla to launch a paid public Robotaxi service in Las Vegas.
This officially allows @Tesla to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis over the next… pic.twitter.com/DPs5UtUlrE
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 20, 2026
That earlier cap, covered here after it surfaced on August 13, came with restrictions that looked stricter than what Tesla runs in Austin: a 45 mph speed ceiling, no airport pickups, and a geofence confined to the Strip corridor. The new approval extends Tesla’s operating authority to all of Clark County, with room to request an even wider geofence across the state.
Tesla representatives at the meeting said they have no intention of putting 5,000 cars on the road right away. Commercial rides are expected to start within 30 days, pending vehicle inspections, insurance filings, and fare approval, the standard steps every robotaxi operator in Nevada has had to clear.
Tesla’s own Robotaxi account replied to the news with a short line, The golden future is upon us.
The timing lines up with Tesla’s broader robotaxi push this month. The company is preparing to open Cybercab rides to the public in Austin as soon as this month, and it opened a sweepstakes for riders to win a seat at the launch event. Tesla filed its original application for a 5,000 vehicle Nevada fleet back in June, a request regulators trimmed to 10 vehicles when they issued the interim order in July. Thursday’s vote effectively grants the number Tesla asked for from the start.
Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi operator, has run in Nevada since 2025 and was capped at 100 vehicles before Thursday’s decision. Tesla’s new ceiling puts it well ahead of that comparison on paper, though the company has said its actual fleet size will depend on how quickly FSD v15 rolls out, the software update executives have called the gateway to scaling unsupervised robotaxi operations nationwide.
Tesla Robotaxi will be a 24/7 service: here’s when
Tesla Full Self-Driving will now overtake manual driving to avoid disaster
