I wonder if they will be able to demonstrate that any damage was actually done. The $420 tweet had a reverse effect in the end, not what most people would expect from such a tweet.
EDIT: down $31 in after hours, hell, I’m thinking about suing. :-P
Fortunately, my brother talked me out of it but I was seriously considering buying some.
Which is exactly it. Folks here and elsewhere refer to it as "...obviously a joke". No, it's not so obvious, because if you joke about such things the SEC will nail your ass to the wall. And hence my consideration of purchase. Were the SEC not to follow through, well, what are they going to say when the next joker says, "j/k"?
And so, apologists and Musk themselves are about to find out that they're fucking serious when they tell you not to make bomb jokes in the airport security line. And when your antics take 10% off your share price in one day, Musk'll start to lose some fans even, because this shareholder sure isn't the Musk fan he once was.
This case is unique in that both shorts and longs were harmed. Plenty to go around. How many people bought shares at ~$350 assuming they'd be private at $420 because the CEO said so?
The risk is if Elon musk could be a misleading liar, and the return was 20%. Well the end result is that Elon musk is a manchild who deserves books thrown at him by SEC and DOJ.