Days after announcing a new CEO at Twitter, Elon Musk has turned his eye to Tesla, ordering managers to clear all hires at the electric car maker through him.
Musk communicated the decision in a memo to Tesla staff on Monday, according to documents obtained by The Information.
Musk asked Tesla managers to send him a weekly list of all proposed hires, including contractors, and to “think carefully” about anything being proposed, according to the report.
Musk has given out similar directives in the past, the publication said, with staff reporting that the practice has at times been tantamount to a hiring freeze.
Also on Monday, a federal appeals court rejected the billionaire’s plea to modify or end a 2018 settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that required some of his tweets to get advance approval from a Tesla lawyer.
Musk had appealed to end the requirement, charging that having to pre-clear his tweets was a “government-imposed muzzle” that violated his free speech rights.
Musk had agreed to the reviews in 2018 as part of a consent decree to end a federal case accusing him of defrauding investors with a tweet that he had “funding secured” to take his electric car company private at $420 a share. The funding never materialised and the company was never taken private.
Shareholders and the SEC charged that Musk’s tweet drove up share prices and ultimately contributed to losses taken by some shareholders.
In addition to agreeing to have some tweets screened, Musk and Tesla each also paid $20m in civil fines and Musk gave up his role as chairman as a result of the SEC case.
Musk’s request to end that arrangement was initially denied by a Manhattan federal court judge who ruled in 2022 that the requirement did not need to be lifted just because Musk no longer wanted to adhere to it now that Tesla had “become, in his estimation, all but invincible”.
On Monday, a three-judge panel of the second US circuit court of appeals affirmed that ruling, noting that Musk’s tweets have continued to raise business controversies, even despite the reviews. The ruling said the SEC had opened two subsequent inquiries into Musk tweets that “plausibly violated” the settlement’s terms. It also said Musk agreed to the settlement allowing screening of his tweets and had no right to void it now “because he has now changed his mind”.
“Had Musk wished to preserve his right to tweet without even limited internal oversight concerning certain Tesla-related topics, he had the right to litigate … or to negotiate a different agreement – but he chose not to do so,” the panel wrote in the ruling.
“Nor does the public interest require modification of the consent decree. If anything, it cuts in the other direction, given the importance of the public’s interest in the enforcement of federal securities laws … ”
In February, a San Francisco jury found Musk not liable for investor losses over his “funding secured” tweet.
Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk, told Reuters: “We will seek further review and continue to bring attention to the important issue of the government constraint on speech.”
Musk, who bought Twitter last year for $44bn, last week confirmed Linda Yaccarino will take over as chief executive of the social media company. Yaccarino previously served as NBCUniversal’s head of global advertising.
Musk tweeted on Friday that Yaccarino will focus on business operations while he will concentrate on product design and new technology.
Reuters contributed to this report
