Former Tesla Short-Seller Covered at Exactly the Wrong Time
*By Michael Teich*
Tesla's receipt of a SEC subpoena signals there could be "more fire under the hood at Tesla," said hedge fund founder and former Tesla short-seller George Schultze.
"It's troubling," he said Friday in an interview on Cheddar. "It's a bad sign for corporate governance and generally for the company."
Tesla ($TSLA) finds itself facing more regulatory pressure after the SEC subpoenaed the automaker on Friday. The government agency is probing whether Tesla delivered inaccurate projections for its Model 3 sedan in 2017.
The SEC and Tesla are already well-acquainted ー after CEO Elon Musk's $20 million fine for August tweets stating he planned to take the company private and had "funding secured." Musk was also forced to step down as Tesla's chairman. But Schultze said Tesla leadership could experience another shake-up.
"I would think there's going to be some more turmoil in the board and some changes for corporate governance."
Schultze's firm flipped on its bearish stance as a short-seller, believing that Tesla was on its way to becoming a private company. Now Schultze Asset Management is sitting on the sidelines.
"We had a short position. We covered it, unfortunately, on the day he said he that he had funding secured because we believed he was telling the truth, but it turns out that was all a big fraud."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/sec-subpoena-to-tesla-is-a-troubling-sign-says-hedge-fund-founder).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
