Maverick Musk fences with market watchdog

Elon Musk, the owner of electric carmaker Tesla and the richest man in the world with a wealth of $287 billion, is fighting the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the market regulator in the United States. Musk’s lawyers approached a court last week saying that the SEC has not been distributing the $40 million it had collected as fines from Musk and Tesla to the shareholders as part of a settlement.

Musk’s lawyers feel that this is an attempt by the government to silence the tycoon who had been critical of the government and the politicians on the issue of inequality. The SEC imposed the penalty on Musk and Tesla in 2018 because of the controversial tweets of Musk, especially about buying back all the shares at a high price. The corporate decision was tweeted without the approval of the company’s board, and the loss suffered by Tesla’s shareholders. The SEC had also objected to Tesla using Musk’s Twitter account to announce the company’s decisions.

Musk has been engaged in a running battle with Democrat politicians and 2020 presidential aspirants Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the issue of inequality. And the tycoon announced a $5.7 billion donation to charity to deal with the problem.

He was responding to the report of United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) and said that he would sell all his shares if the WFP could prove that $6 billion would help remove inequality. The UN and others have been pointing a finger at the billionaires, and how the rich became richer and the poor poorer during the pandemic.

This was partly a concern for the impact the pandemic had on the livelihoods of majority of the people across the world and how it accentuated economic differences, and indirectly blaming the billionaires for their apathy. Musk on his part was trying to hit back saying that he as a billionaire was only too willing to pitch in if it would help solve the problem of inequality. It is a classic clash of view between a capitalist and the critics of capitalism.

It is not clear whether any tycoon can be silenced in democratic and capitalist America, and especially someone like Musk who is willing to dare to do the good deed. But Musk seems to believe that the government in America is trying to silence him – the phrase used by his lawyers is “chill him” – and he is seeking remedy in an American court. It is surely a battle of wits and Musk is confident of getting the better of SEC. It is however not clear whether the SEC is doing the bid of politicians to choke Musk.

The fund that SEC is holding is a mere $40 million, which is a small fraction of Musk’s wealth and Tesla’s near-trillion-dollar market valuation. Musk is the 21st century version of the old American tycoons, along with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

While Bezos and Zuckerberg are riding high on the exponential growth of digital platforms, Musk has fashioned himself in the old-fashioned mould of an industrialist with a technological edge. The Time magazine has chosen him “Person of the Year 2021”. Musk has shown the qualities of a pioneer in expanding the frontiers. The electric vehicle of Tesla has become the role model for the future automobile. He has also ventured into space, both for placing communications satellites as well as space flights, with eyes firmly set on colonisation of Mars. He is reckless and debonair in his speech as well as in his ambitious ventures.

 And he is certainly not a victim of government harassment as he seems to believe and his lawyers portray him. But Musk remains a maverick, an irritant to the regular politicians but he does not pose a threat to the social order!