i believe elon’s argument is that the offending tweet didn’t need approval because he believed that he was just restating a projection made on the previous earnings call
> According to Tesla’s Policy, any edits to a pre-approved Written Communication or even releasing a verbatim pre-approved Written Communication more than two days after it has been pre-approved requires that the pre-approval be reconfirmed. Even if the exact substance of the 7:15 tweet had been pre-approved 20 days before, Musk cannot credibly claim that he thought he was not required to obtain pre-approval again under the plain terms of the Policy. In fact, the written communication in the 7:15 tweet was not pre-approved 20 days earlier or at any time. Musk’s claim that he thought he was simply restating information from the January 30 communications is not credible.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5750664-Show-Cause.h... page 12
The argument is not "this tweet got approved before, so I can edit it however I want". The argument is "the number is already public information, so I can make a new post mentioning it".
That is the problem, in a nutshell: it should have been pre-approved - according to the FCC's interpretation of the settlement agreement.