马斯克泄露公司生产数据，恐再遭SEC起诉

埃隆·马斯克的档案显示，他从2007年至今已经发布了8,339条推文——毕竟，他经营了那么多家公司。这位特斯拉（Tesla）的首席执行官可能不是发推文最多的人，不过考虑到他有2,760万粉丝，影响力巨大，这位男人在推特（Twitter）绝对独树一帜。而他在7月底对太阳能屋顶瓦产量的评论可能会让他和公司再一次陷入监管困境。

马斯克之前就曾经在推特上惹是生非，他不慎公开过自己的手机号码，还把参与泰国足球队救援工作的一位潜水员称作“傻瓜”。

随后，他又声称要将公司私有化却并未实施，这使他陷入与美国证券交易委员会（SEC）的争端。最终双方达成和解，马斯克和特斯拉各被罚款2,000万美元，马斯克也被迫放弃特斯拉董事长的职务长达三年。

美国证券交易委员会的和解协议旨在阻止马斯克通过社交媒体的评论影响公司的股价。马斯克答应的条件之一就是在没有获得特斯拉聘用的“资深证券律师的事先许可”时，不得提及“尚未由公司事先核准的书面信息（“官方公司指导”）发布，或与已经发布的官方公司指导有所出入的产量、销售量或出货量（无论是实际数据、预测数据还是计划数据）。”

7月底，他发布了关于公司“达到应用规模的能量储存技术”，也就是其电池业务相关的一篇新闻稿的链接。作者瑞安·麦克卡弗雷回复时问道：“太阳能屋顶瓦的进展如何了？你们在研发新款产品（第三代？），没错吧？”

马斯克不到一个小时就给予了回复：“在迅速扩大生产线。希望在今年年底前每周能生产大约1,000个太阳能屋顶。”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk may not be the most prolific tweeter, with 8,339 completed messages since 2007, according to his profile—he is running multiple companies, after all. But when it comes to his 27.6 million followers and his impact, the man is in a class by himself. And a tweet in the end of July about production of solar roof tiles may have landed him and the company back in regulatory hot water.

Musk has had tweet wars with others, once accidentally publicized his cell phone number, and called a diver involved in the rescue of a Thai soccer team a “pedo.”

And then there was the unrealized claim of taking the company private, which set off an involved dispute with the SEC that resulted in a consent decree, $20 million-dollar fines for both Musk and Tesla, and Musk stepping down as Tesla chairman for three years.

The SEC decree was intended to keep Musk from affecting the company’s stock price through comments on social media. Among other things, he agreed not to mention “production numbers or sales or delivery numbers (whether actual, forecast, or projected) that have not been previously published via pre-approved written communications issued by the Company (“Official Company Guidance”) or deviate from previously published Official Company Guidance” without the “pre-approval of an experienced securities lawyer” employed by Tesla.

In the end of July, he linked to a press release about the company’s “utility-scale energy storage”—in other words, an aspect of its battery business. Journalist Ryan McCaffrey replied with the question, “How’s solar roof tile progress going? You were working on a new version (V3?) of that, right?.”

Within an hour, Musk responded, “Spooling up production line rapidly. Hoping to manufacture ~1000 solar roofs/week by end of this year.”

《财富》杂志回顾了特斯拉2019年第一季度和第二季度的季报，以及2018年的年报，其中并未提及太阳能屋顶生产线的产量。

《财富》杂志随后与特斯拉的公关部门进行了联系，询问推文是否得到了律师同意，不过目前尚未得到回复。

特斯拉面临的难题在于，太阳能业务在财报中被列为了公司的组成部分之一。

法律公司Dorsey Whitney的合伙人托马斯·戈尔曼表示：“如果这个数据涉及公司的经营品种之一，他透露了经营品种的数据，那牵扯的就是特斯拉。如果他说的是另一件事情——例如（特斯拉在2016年收购的）Solar City的业务——我们在并购Solar City上做得相当不错——那就不一样了。”

戈尔曼补充道：“如果双方重返法庭对峙，这可不是个好论点，法官不会高兴的。我可不愿意为这个论点辩护。”（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

A Fortune review of the 10-Q financial filings for the first and second quarters of 2019 and of the 10-K for 2018 showed no production numbers for the Solar Roof product line.

Fortune contacted Tesla’s PR department to ask whether the tweet was cleared with a lawyer, but has not yet received an answer.

The challenge for Tesla is that the solar energy business is listed in financial filings as a division of the company.

“If that’s broken out as one of the business lines and he’s giving out numbers on the business line, that's Tesla,” said Thomas Gorman, a partner at law firm Dorsey Whitney. “If he was talking about something separate, like the Solar City business [that Tesla acquired in 2016]— we’re doing pretty good with the Solar City acquisition — that’s different.”

“This is not a great argument and if they go back to court, the judge will not be happy,” Gorman added. “I would not like to defend that argument.”