Its a joke. The only alternative is that Elon Musk is manipulating the price of his shares by tweeting private and sensitive information and therefore needs to be fined by the SEC and possibly jailed for stock manipulation.
Therefore, its a joke. Because as stupid as Mr. Musk has been this past year, I am sure he's well aware of the illegality of stock manipulation on American markets.
It's not...
https://mentalfloss.com/article/62749/what-meaning-behind-42...
From the article
> You may have heard that 420 is police code for possession, or maybe it’s the penal code for marijuana use. Both are false.
If there is an investigation into stock manipulation the fact that there's funding secured would factor heavily against it.
420 is also somewhere in the range of 15-20% higher than the current price, making it a realistic offering price.
Also:
* https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026885883482365953
* https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1026890900885184514
But thanks for your valuable input.
Normally, announcements for stock buybacks, taking a stock private, etc. etc. need to be filed with the SEC months in advanced and announced to the general community.
Apparently, I'm mistaken. Its a minor violation, but still not in the spirit of how major stock market announcements are supposed to happen.
The requirement to comply with Regulation FD is that investors should be able to have some reasonable confidence that the source in question - the twitter account - is a legitimate source for the company. The two Twitter accounts that would clearly apply to would be @tesla and @elonmusk.
https://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=TradeHalts
If this isn't a joke, then that means Mr. Musk announced the news before the T1 halt. Expect an SEC investigation soon. I'd definitely expect his actions to be illegal, although I'm not a lawyer.
Its probably going to be a slap on the wrist / a relatively small fine, but there's a proper dance to releasing information on the stock market to ensure everything is fair.