Tesla is facing a criminal probe from the US attorney’s office in the Northern District of California over CEO Elon Musk’s statements about taking Tesla private, Bloomberg reports.
Tesla and the US attorney’s office in the Northern District of California did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to Bloomberg, the probe was opened last month after Musk tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private and had the “funding secured” to do so. The investigation is reportedly at an early stage, and criminal probes do not necessarily lead to enforcement actions.
Musk attracted controversy in August over his statements about wanting to take Tesla private, which raised questions about the certainty of funding Musk referenced in his “funding secured” tweet and where exactly that funding would come from. Subsequent news reports and statements from Musk suggested that he may not have had legally-binding agreements in place to finance a go-private deal at the time he published the tweet. Fox Business and The New York Times reported that the SEC had sent subpoenas to Tesla concerning Tesla’s plans to explore going private and Musk’s statements about the process.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the agency had been investigating how the company communicated production issues it faced with its Model 3 sedan before Musk’s tweets about going private.
Two weeks after saying he was considering taking Tesla private, Musk said it will remain a public company. Though he said in a post on Tesla’s website that he believed there was “more than enough funding” to complete a go-private deal, he said the process of going private could create distractions for the company and problems for its current investors, some of whom had told Musk they would prefer Tesla remain public, he said.
Read Bloomberg’s full story here.
Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com.
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