Tesla Executives Grilled Elon Musk When His Story Wasn't Adding Up

After getting caught tweeting out a lie, Elon Musk was interrogated by Tesla executives worried about government blowback.

Last year, after Reuters reported that Tesla was killing its $25,000 model to focus on the Robotaxi, Musk tweeted that the British news wire was "lying" — but according to new reporting from the same outlet, he was the one telling fibs.

As Reuters reports, Tesla higher-ups were perplexed that Musk had denied the cancellation of the cheaper model, because he had told people within the company that he was, in fact, kiboshing the project.

Trying to get to the bottom of the morass, those same execs questioned the CEO and asked whether he'd reversed course without consulting them. In response, according to Reuters' unnamed insider sources, Musk said that the cancellation was still in place — something he seemed to admit months later when he joked in an earnings call that a $25,000 Tesla would be "pointless."

That fib could have gotten the company in trouble yet again with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has a long history of nailing Musk for his tweets.

Back in 2018, the billionaire's itchy posting fingers landed Tesla in boiling-hot water with the SEC after he tweeted that he was considering taking the electric vehicle company private at $420 per share. Despite Musk ultimately paying out $40 million for the stunt, the dumb debacle has continued to be a thorn in Tesla's side as the mercurial CEO kept blasting the agency for daring to punish him.

As Reuters notes, Musk's agreement with the SEC requires that he have business-related Tesla tweets be vetted by a lawyer, though he has claimed to associates, per the news wire's sources, that he never consults with attorneys before posting.

It remains unclear whether the SEC has approached Tesla, if execs explicitly relayed their fears about the SEC to Musk, or how he took the questioning.

As usual with Muskworld, the whole situation is so hazy and awkward that it hurts to even consider the interpersonal dynamics. One thing's for sure: the way Elon tweets, it's like he's trying to set the planetwide record for personal damage inflicted by a post.

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