Tesla Plaintiff Calls Musk's Latest Blog Post a 'Confession'
*By Hope King*
Elon Musk’s latest blog post did nothing but strengthen Will Chamberlain’s position that the Tesla CEO’s tweets from last week were fraudulent.
“It was almost a confession that he committed securities fraud,” Chamberlain told Cheddar on Monday.
Chamberlain is a plaintiff in a class-action suit against Tesla and Musk. The suit was [filed Friday afternoon](https://cheddar.com/videos/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-tesla-after-elon-musks-tweet) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and claims that Tesla and its CEO violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by making allegedly false and misleading statements to defraud Tesla investors. Reed Katherein, the attorney for Chamberlain, agreed that Musk’s blog post read almost as a confession.
“It’s pretty clear that funding was not secured and that he did not have a reasonable basis for saying funding was secured,” Kathrein said.
In his [post](https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-taking-tesla-private), Musk said the Saudi sovereign wealth fund had "approached me multiple times about taking Tesla private," and that the Saudi's interest in the company gave him the confidence to announce last week that he had "secured" the necessary financing to take the company private. "Obviously, the Saudi sovereign fund has more than enough capital needed to execute on such a transaction," Musk said.
Musk has come under increasing pressure to prove that a tweet [he posted last Tuesday](https://cheddar.com/videos/what-tesla-looks-like-as-a-private-vs-public-company) announcing the CEO’s intention to take the company private at $420 a share was based on some kind of firm commitment from outside investors.
The tweet included very specific language that is the target of an SEC inquiry and two [class-action](https://cheddar.com/videos/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against-tesla-after-elon-musks-tweet) lawsuits: “Funding secured.”
In his post, Musk said that he had met with Saudi investors on July 31 of this year. "I left the July 31st meeting with no question that a deal with the Saudi sovereign fund could be closed, and that it was just a matter of getting the process moving," he wrote. "This is why I referred to 'funding secured' in the August 7th announcement."
Kathrein, who says he has not been contacted by the company ー nor by Musk ー believes the tweet was intended to drive short sellers like his client to cover their positions.
“To me, he is playing with fire,” said Kathrein, a partner at the law firm Hagens Berman. “That does not justify putting out this tweet that says funding is secured.”
Musk’s contentious relationship with short sellers is both well-documented and publicized. One recent example [took place in June](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1008450201885872129) when he tweeted to his 22 million followers that short sellers have “about three weeks before their short position explodes.”
Chamberlain, who said his short position is made up of about 80 percent common stock short and 20 percent puts, reduced his position as a result of the tweet.
In an interview with Cheddar on Sunday, Chamberlain ー a lawyer who previously practiced with the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Class Action Fairness ー said he covered his position because he had to take the tweet seriously.
Musk is the "CEO of a publicly traded company," he said. "I have to hedge against the risk that he has not committed securities fraud. That seems like a reasonable thing to do."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/did-elon-musks-tweet-break-the-law).
Over the weekend, Russia fired a missile at one of its own satellites, triggering an explosion that launched thousands of pieces of shrapnel through space and forced the astronauts aboard the International Space Station to shelter in place. Senior Writer from Space.com Chelsea 'Foxanne' Gohd, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Twitter announced a partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices on Thursday to build the S&P 500 Sentiment Index for monitoring the performance of 200 S&P members based on tweets with company $cashtags. Jared Podnos, strategic market development lead at Twitter, and Peter Roffman, global head of innovation and strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices, joined Cheddar to provide some background on the partnership and to explain exactly how monitoring companies through public opinion will work. "[The S&P] taps into this conversation. They understand the real-time conversation as well as the historical trends, and then we can analyze that and understand the consumer sentiment and really build these innovative products around that conversation," Podnos added.
Cognitive healthcare platform BrainCheck recently raised $10 million in a Series B round. The platform offers neurologists a new way to detect and care for brain disorders like Alzeheimer's, and brain injuries like concussions. BrainCheck CEO Yael Katz joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Jean-Denis Mariani, the chief digital officer at COTY, the parent company for major brands like Bottega Veneta, Burberry, and Kylie Skin, joined Cheddar to talk about the impact of the pandemic on the beauty industry and the rapid shift to e-commerce sales. "There is no digital strategy anymore, only strategy in a digital world," he said. Mariani also talked about personalized makeup selection for consumers as the beauty sector begins to incorporate technology like artificial intelligence.
Amid an ongoing global semiconductor chip shortage, American automaker Ford has decided to open up supply chains of its own. Karl Brauer, an executive analyst at iSeeCars.com, joined Cheddar to discuss Ford's new partnership with multinational semiconductor maker GlobalFoundries to build those chips domestically. Brauer praised Ford for the move both for ongoing supply woes and the future of automobile manufacturing. "It's not just the supply chain," he said. "It's not just about getting chips, but maybe getting chips that are more customized and specific to your needs."
Gerald Johnson, Executive VP, Global Manufacturing and Sustainability at General Motors, joins Cheddar News to break down what Factory ZERO signifies for GM's all-electric future and why the auto manufacturer will be a leader in the growing EV industry.
Airlines are gearing up for a busy winter season as they continue to rebound from the pandemic. But jet fuel prices combined with the ongoing labor shortage could put a damper on those holiday gains. Christian Vernet, president of La Compagnie, the only all business class airline in the world, joined Cheddar for an update on the state of the airline industry and how it's dealing with the surge in demand after the U.S. reopened its border to international visitors.
Cadillac is launching its first ever all-electric vehicle. The 2023 Lyriq boasts an estimated 300 mile range, $60,000 dollar starting price, a 33-inch advanced LED display, among many other features. The rollout comes as Cadillac has posted record third quarter global sales and plans to become all-electric by 2030. Rory Harvey, vice president of Cadillac, joined Cheddar to discuss what drivers can expect from the Lyriq, and how the brand has been able to deal with the ongoing chip shortage.
Spotify has officially made its lyrics feature available to users globally after piloting the program in various countries. Now, users can read the lyrics while listening to their favorite songs on th app.
