Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a settlement stemming from their latest Twitter beef Friday afternoon.
According to a court filing, the two sides agreed to amend the original settlement to be more specific about exactly what types of statements Musk must have approved by lawyers before tweeting them. Previously, the settlement said that any potentially material statements had to be viewed by an experienced securities lawyer before Musk tweeted them, but Musk argued in filings for an SEC complaint about a subsequent tweet that the original settlement gave him the ability to determine if statements could be material before showing them to a lawyer.
In the reworked settlement, the SEC left no wiggle room in that regard. It has now replaced the materiality baseline with a long list of specific Tesla metrics that must be shown to a lawyer before they can be shared. Among that list is production or delivery forecasts that have not been shared or that are not the same as what had previously been shared, which is what started the latest kerfuffle, along with potential mergers, financial condition or performance, new product lines, nonpublic filings and other topics.
Even with the list of topics Musk must have cleared before mentioning, a footnote still said that it was not meant to be the only topics that could be material.
An SEC spokeswoman declined to comment beyond the filing. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.
Tesla TSLA, -5.04% stock gained about 1% in late trading Friday afternoon after the settlement was confirmed. Shares fell 14% in the week to $235.14, their lowest close in more than two years, after Tesla reported large losses in the first quarter.
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