(New York) Already in bickering with Elon Musk, the American stock market policeman (SEC) has opened an investigation to determine whether the boss of Tesla and his brother had not recently committed insider trading around the sale of actions, said Thursday the Wall Street Journal.
Posted at 3:54 p.m.
The procedure was launched after Kimbal Musk sold shares valued at $ 108 million, the day before a tweet from his brother asking his followers on the social network whether or not he should sell 10% of his shares in the manufacturer of electric vehicles, according to the economic daily which cites sources familiar with the matter.
PHOTO FRED PROUSER, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Kimbal Musk in 2013.
The share price had retreated in the wake of this message.
The question, according to wall street journalis whether Elon Musk warned his brother, also a member of the board of directors of Tesla, that he was going to publish this tweet and whether Kimbal Musk consequently placed orders.
Employees and managers of a listed company should normally not buy or sell securities when they are aware of information that has not yet been made public.
The richest man in the world is already in open conflict with the authority of the financial markets, the SEC, because of another tweet in which the entrepreneur assured in 2018 that he had the appropriate financing to withdraw Tesla from the company. Stock market, without providing proof.
The SEC ordered Elon Musk to relinquish the chairmanship of Tesla’s board of directors, pay a $20 million fine, and later demanded that his tweets directly related to Tesla’s business be pre-approved by a lawyer. competent.
A Tesla attorney reignited the battle over the deal by sending a letter to a judge last week accusing the SEC of waging a “campaign of harassment” against Mr. Musk and failing to fulfill its own obligations by not not pay the fine to the shareholders.
The SEC responded Monday to deny the charges, prompting a new missive from Tesla’s attorney.
The judge on Thursday declined to hold a new hearing on the deal, saying Tesla’s demands were “unclear.”