Because of a wrong statement, Musk "lost 40 million dollars"
In 2018, the stock price of Tesla experienced fluctuations due to a tweet about privatizing the company. Following a collective lawsuit and settlement between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Tesla, a group of Tesla investors received an average compensation of $12,000 per person, totaling $40 million.
On Thursday, August 24th, a group of Tesla investors reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over a lawsuit, with each investor receiving an average compensation of $12,000. The lawsuit stemmed from Tesla's famous tweet in 2018, where Elon Musk claimed to have secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share, but later failed to do so.
As part of the settlement, the SEC plans to pay investors $40 million, in addition to the interest agreed upon by Tesla's CEO and the company, as civil penalties. This amount represents slightly over half of the estimated $80 million losses incurred by investors due to the stock price fluctuations following the tweet. It is also a small portion of the $12 billion losses estimated by Tesla investors in another class-action lawsuit earlier this year.
The SEC has filed court documents on Wednesday evening, seeking final approval of the settlement plan.
According to the documents, if the plan is approved, a total of 3,350 claims will be paid from the fund established for the settlement. On average, each investor's investment amount is slightly less than $12,400. The judge stated that he would sign off on the plan on September 1st if Tesla or the SEC does not oppose it.
What caused the significant difference between the $80 million and $12 billion losses is not entirely clear at the moment. However, the experts' figures apply to the losses incurred by all Tesla investors within 10 days after the tweet was published on August 7th, 2018. The SEC's data covers a little over 27 hours after the tweet was published, excluding losses related to options and derivatives trading, and only applies to Tesla common stock. Furthermore, not all eligible investors have filed claims.
The investors in this class-action lawsuit lost the trial in February, as the jury took only two hours to dismiss Tesla's allegations of deceiving them through the tweet. This case is one of the few corporate securities fraud cases that have reached the trial stage.