FCPA Compliance Report - Karen Woody on Elon Musk Attack on SEC Consent Decree
Compliance Into The Weeds - Elon Musk and Tesla Redux
Top Five Corporate Scandals of 2018: Episode IV-Tesla and its Elon Problem
This Week in FCPA-Episode 129, week ending November 16, 2018 - the Farewell to Stan Lee edition
Elon Musk’s Ventures and Controversies - Elon Musk is well known for his many ventures as well as his disdain for convention. While serving as the CEO of Tesla, Inc., Musk acquired Twitter (now X Corp.) and founded a private...more
This week, Elon Musk interviewed former President Trump on his social media platform X. During the interview, the two participants discussed their response to a hypothetical strike at Musk’s Tesla production facility. Trump...more
Last month, the SEC announced another enforcement action emphasizing the need for early disclosure of cybersecurity events. In the recent action, the company had taken three weeks to act on internal alerts of malware on its...more
“Was the richest person in the world overpaid?” That’s how the Delaware Court of Chancery (the Court) began the 200-page opinion in Tornetta v. Musk to rescind Elon Musk’s entire $55.8 billion 10-year equity compensation...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery issued a post-trial opinion, on January 30, 2024, in Tornetta v. Musk, holding that Tesla’s board of directors (the “Board”) breached its fiduciary duties in awarding CEO Elon Musk (with the...more
The Case: A Tesla stockholder sued Tesla's board of directors to rescind a performance-based stock option grant awarded to Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO. The option award was worth a total of $56 billion and offered the opportunity...more
The Delaware Chancery Court invalidated a substantial equity award to Elon Musk – the largest in history. It applied the entire fairness test instead of the more deferential business judgment rule, finding that Musk...more
Chancellor Kathleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery grappled with this question in a recent derivative lawsuit challenging Tesla’s performance-based equity award with a potential USD55.8 billion maximum value and...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery invalidated a $55.8-billion payout by Tesla, Inc., to its founder and controlling stockholder, Elon Musk. In a 200-page post-trial decision, Chancellor McCormick stated Musk was required to...more
Process still matters. That’s the main takeaway from the Delaware Court of Chancery’s 200-page opinion striking down Tesla’s 2018 incentive package awarded to Elon Musk. The court rescinded the incentive package mainly...more
On January 30, 2024, the Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery struck down the $55.8 billion compensation plan that Tesla, Inc.’s board of directors had granted to Tesla’s well-known CEO, Elon Musk, finding that the...more
On June 6, 2023, in a unanimous decision written by Justice Karen L. Valihura, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Chancery’s April 27, 2022, opinion in In re Tesla Motors, Inc. Stockholder Litigation....more
The Delaware Supreme Court recently affirmed the Delaware Court of Chancery’s 2022 post-trial decision that Tesla’s 2016 all-stock acquisition of SolarCity Corp. satisfied the entire fairness standard of review, and thus did...more
On March 31, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) decision issued in 2021 (previously discussed here), which held that Tesla Inc. violated the...more
On February 3, 2023, in the matter In re Tesla Inc. Securities Litigation, Case No. 3:18-cv-04865, a California federal jury cleared Tesla, Inc. (Tesla), and CEO Elon Musk of claims that they committed securities fraud,...more
On February 3, 2023, a federal California jury found Elon Musk not liable for losses experienced by Tesla investors following his August 2018 tweet stating he had “funding secured” to take the company private. The...more
Amidst all the controversy and legal proceedings involving Elon Musk, one could overlook the fact that he and his company Tesla are on trial now in U.S. District Court for securities fraud. Yet they are: a jury has been...more
Tesla Motors Stockholder Litigation arises out of Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity, a market leader in manufacturing and installing solar energy generation systems. On two occasions in 2015 and 2016, Elon Musk suggested to...more
In a seemingly Hollywood marriage, Elon Musk—the Chief Executive Officer of Tesla and SpaceX (“Mr. Musk”)—stated he is terminating his agreement to purchase Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”) for $54.20 per share or about $44 billion...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery’s April 27 Tesla Motors opinion likens some decisions to “parables”—stories that illustrate important lessons. In the words of presiding Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III, the story of Tesla...more
As expected, traders’ initial exuberance at the Fed’s big rate hike was short-lived, and markets resumed their recent dismal performance on Thursday, as recession fears joined inflation concerns to make for a rough day on...more
On April 27, 2022, the Delaware Court of Chancery in In re Tesla Motors Stockholder Litigation rendered a post-trial verdict finding for Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, Inc., on claims that Musk breached his...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery issued its decision in In re Tesla Motors, Inc., on April 27, 2022, rejecting claims that Tesla, Inc. CEO Elon Musk breached his fiduciary duties to Tesla’s stockholders as a director and an...more
On April 19, 2022, Judge James R. Knepp II of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio approved consent judgments against biotechnology firm Rising Biosciences, Inc. and its CEO Arthur Hall for violations of...more
On Wednesday, federal authorities arrested Archegos Capital Management’s Bill Hwang and the company’s former CFO Patrick Halligan over an alleged “stock manipulation scheme they called staggering in size and brazen in its...more