Tesla CEO Elon Musk seemed to take aim at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a tweet on Thursday, calling it the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission.”
“Just want to that the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work. And the name change is so on point!” Musk said.
The SEC declined Business Insider’s request for comment. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what Musk meant by the tweet.
Some Twitter users celebrated Musk’s tweet, while others expressed disapproval.
“Keep it coming, Elon,” one said.
“Elon, please stop. This hurts shareholders worse than the SEC,” another said.
About 40 minutes after his initial tweet, Musk published another in which he addressed a typo in the first tweet and appeared to target the SEC again.
“Sorry about the typo. That was unforgivable. Why would they be upset about their mission? It’s what they do,” he said.
The SEC reached a settlement with Musk on Saturday. Under the terms of the settlement, Musk doesn’t admit or deny the allegations in the agency’s lawsuit against him, but he will step down as the chairman of Tesla’s board of directors for three years and pay a $20 million fine.
According to the SEC, Tesla must create a committee of independent directors and “put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk’s communications.” This includes his communication on platforms like Twitter.
The agency sued Musk last week after he reportedly rejected a settlement under which he would have had to step down as board chairman for two years, add two independent directors to the company’s board, and pay a $10 million fine. The SEC alleged in the lawsuit that Musk made “false and misleading statements” in August about the possibility of taking the Tesla private and sought to bar Musk from being an officer or director of a public company.
The SEC alleged that Musk said a representative from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had shown interest in taking Tesla private but had never discussed with Musk any of the specific terms he described on Twitter. According to the SEC, those terms included a proposed $420 share price and an option for all existing Tesla shareholders to remain with the company after it went private.
Musk said in a company statement last week that he was “deeply saddened and disappointed” by the lawsuit, which he described as “unjustified.”
Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com.
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