Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the electric car company’s board of directors have been sued by a shareholder who accused Musk of violating its 2018 agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for its use on Twitter.
According to an unsealed complaint late Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court, Musk’s “irregular” tweets, including a post on May 1 last year, showed that Tesla’s share price was “too high” and that Tesla’s board of directors failed. monitoring compliance with the SEC agreement exposed shareholders to billions of dollars in losses.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The SEC agreement resulted from Musk’s August 2018 tweet that he was considering privatizing Tesla and had “secured financing” for a possible $ 72 billion transaction.
He and Tesla agreed each month to pay $ 20 million in civil fines to settle with the regulator, and Musk agreed for Tesla’s lawyers to check some of his tweets in advance.
The shareholders’ lawsuit said Musk continued to tweet without the necessary prior approval. Musk and other Tesla executives are being sought to pay damages to the company for breaching their fiduciary duties.