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Tesla's Elon Musk says tweet that led to $20 million fine 'Worth It'

October 27, 2018 at 11:41 am EDT

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk said the tweet that cost him and the company $20 million in fines each by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision was "Worth It".

The tweet, sent late Friday evening less than an hour before Musk tweeted that he would take a break from Twitter "for a few days," was in response to a question from a Twitter follower.

The SEC in September charged Musk, 47, with misleading investors with tweets on Aug. 7 that said he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share and had secured funding. The tweets had no basis in fact, and the ensuing market chaos hurt investors, regulators claimed.

Tesla Inc and Elon Musk have agreed to pay $20 million each to financial regulators and the billionaire will step down as the company’s chairman but remain as chief executive, under a settlement.

Under the settlement agreement, Tesla needs to appoint an independent chairman by Nov. 13.

(Reporting by Kenneth Li; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Elon Musk

Mr. Elon R. Musk is a Chief Executive Officer at The Boring Co., a Technoking of Tesla at Tesla, Inc., a Chief Executive Officer & Director at Space Exploration Technologies Corp., a Chief Executive & Technology Officer at Spacex SA and a Co-Chairman at OpenAir, Inc. He is on the Board of Directors at Tesla, Inc., Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc. and Musk Foundation. Mr. Musk was previously employed as a Trustee by California Institute of Technology, a Chairman by SolarCity Corp., a Chairman & Chief Executive Officer by PayPal, Inc., a Founder by Zip2 Corp., a Co-Founder by Neuralink Corp., a Co-Founder by OpenAI, Inc., a Non-Executive Director by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., and a Trustee by X PRIZE Foundation. He also served on the board at Everdream Corp. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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TESLA, INC.	Founder
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Aerospace & DefenseElectronic Technology Space Exploration Technologies Corp. designs, manufactures and launches rockets and spacecrafts. It develops the partially reusable launch vehicles Falcon 1 and Falcon 9. The company was founded by Elon Reeve Musk in 2002 and is headquartered in Hawthorne, CA.	Founder