The decisions related to Musk’s previous transactions come amid a busy week for the Tesla CEO, whose $ 44 billion bid for Twitter was accepted by the social networking platform’s board on Monday. SolarCity’s decision follows a lawsuit filed by Tesla shareholders against its board of directors over the acquisition in 2016 of all the shares of the automotive industry of the then financially troubled solar energy company, where Musk was a major investor. The shareholders claimed that Musk, who was chairman of Tesla’s board at the time, had strongly armed its other executives to approve the acquisition. The case was closely monitored by legal observers, as shareholders in the case argued that Musk had effectively controlled Tesla’s board of directors, even though he owned only one-fifth of the company’s stock. The other members of Tesla’s board had previously settled the $ 60 million case, leaving Musk to stand trial alone. Last summer he gave a fiery testimony in a courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware, defending his vision of creating a complete clean energy company and denying that he had promoted the acquisition of all the shares as a bailout for another part of his empire. Delaware Chancellor Joseph Slaich attributed that to a decision in Musk’s favor, writing in his decision on Wednesday that while Tesla’s board process “negotiating and finally proposing the takeover was not at all perfect.” . . “The superiority of the evidence reveals that Tesla paid a fair price.” The agreement “marked a vital step forward for a company [Tesla] “for years it made it clear to the market and its shareholders that it intended to expand from an electric car manufacturer to an alternative energy company,” the judge wrote. “The court ruling acknowledged that there were flaws in the agreement approval process and a high degree of involvement by a conflicting trustee,” said Randall Baron, a lawyer representing the missing shareholders, who said they were considering their next steps. The “secured financing” case was initiated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Musk for an agreement that was not reached. The regulator accused Musk of being involved in fraud in August 2018, telling his 22 million followers on Twitter that they had secured funding to privatize Tesla at $ 420 a share. Musk finally settled down, agreeing to pay a $ 20 million fine and resign from the Tesla presidency. The deal also forced the billionaire to pre-authorize any written communications material to Tesla, including Twitter, the social media platform now privately owned in a $ 44 billion deal. Musk also agreed that he would not deny the allegations in the complaint, nor would he imply that it was unfounded. The SEC then called Musk last November after asking Twitter users if it had to sell part of its stake in Tesla, the decision said, to see if it had sought approval for them. Musk in March asked the court to annul parts of the summons and terminate the consent order, saying the regulator did not have the power to issue the claim and arguing that the summons was issued in bad faith. U.S. District Attorney Lewis Lyman rejected the request in a ruling Wednesday: “Musk can no longer seek to revoke the agreement he knowingly and willingly entered into, simply mourning that he felt he had to agree to it. at that moment, but now – once the ghost of the trial is a distant memory and his company has become, in his estimation, invincible – wishes he did not have “. Musk did not immediately seek comment on the decision. The SEC’s case against Musk has been a headache for the world’s richest man for years as regulators pressured him to produce documents to clarify whether certain tweets were pre-approved. Musk had repeatedly clashed with the SEC and earlier this week referred to its San Francisco office as “shy Wall Street puppets,” claiming in a series of tweets that he was colluding with “petty sharks” to attack Tesla and “not they did nothing. for the protection of real shareholders “.
