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Comment by dosy | Hacker News Reader

Right. Does anyone have any idea why the SEC has such a huge justice-hunger for Musk? Musk definitely gets a lot of government contracts and money, and is very connected to defence, and lobbying. Why is someone that useful / influential becoming a target of such intense focus and interest? Is it a personal grudge at the SEC (why?) or from above? Is it a way to laterally apply pressure on Musk regarding SpaceX?

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I don't think the SEC wants to go after Musk at all. It's unpopular and it's not good for the market to go after someone with such a great track record of capital formation.

He keeps forcing their hand and putting them in a position where they have to either take enforcement action or give him special treatment they don't give any other public company executives.

This is the law. A CEO cannot say he's secured funding for a buyout if it's not true. A CEO cannot sign an agreement with the SEC then publicly violate it without repercussions.

Potentially market moving tweets get filed all the time. It's not different because it's a Twitter. Here is Dell Technologies filing a few of their deal-related tweets: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1571996/000119312518...

Carl Icahn literally files single tweets with the SEC. Here are two of his tweets you can find under Apple's SEC filings:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/320193/0000928464140...

My guess is some of the short sellers have friends who work at the SEC.

That and Musk runs his company like a child, which allows it to be nimble, but also means every action doesn't get as much scrutiny as they expect.

Or, rather than postulating some shadowy conspiracy theory, we can guess that the SEC is a law enforcement agency, and Musk has repeatedly (and in plain sight) violated the law.

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