On September 27, 2018, the Commission filed a complaint (the “Musk Complaint”) against Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, Inc. (“Tesla”). The Musk Complaint alleged that on August 7, 2018, Musk made a series of false and misleading statements regarding taking Tesla, a publicly traded company, private. See the Musk Complaint. On the same day, the Commission also filed a complaint (the “ Tesla Complaint”) against Tesla . The Tesla Complaint alleged that, Tesla failed to implement disclosure controls or procedures to assess whether information disseminated by its CEO, Musk, via his Twitter account was required to be disclosed in reports Tesla files pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. See the Tesla Complaint.

In their respective cases, the Court ordered, and Musk and Tesla have each paid, a $20,000,000 civil penalty to the Commission. The Commission was ordered to hold all funds, together with interest and income earned thereon, pending further order of the Court. See Musk’s Final Judgment and Tesla’s Final Judgment.

On February 6, 2019, the Court entered an order consolidating the two actions for the purposes of distributing the Fund to harmed investors. See the Court’s Order.

On February 26, 2020, the Court entered an order that created a Fair Fund for the $40,000,000 in civil penalties collected from Musk and Tesla (the “Fair Fund”) and appointed Miller Kaplan Arase LLP as the Tax Administrator of the Fair Fund. See the Court’s Order.

On May 12, 2021, the Court entered an order that appointed Rust Consulting (“Rust”) as the Distribution Agent to oversee the administration and distribution of the Fund/Distribution Fund/Fair Fund to Harmed Investors.

On March 8, 2022, the Commission filed a motion to approve a distribution plan, together with the distribution plan (the “Plan”). See the Commission’s Motion and the Plan.

On March 25, 2022, the Court issued an order that approved the Plan. See the Court’s Order.

The Plan provides that the distribution of the Fair/Distribution Fund shall be made to investors based on their losses on shares of the Tesla common stock purchased between 12:48:16 p.m. EDT on August 7, 2018 and 4:00 p.m. EDT on August 8, 2018 due to the misconduct of the Defendants

On August 23, 2023, the Commission filed a motion to distribute $41,532,229.44 to eligible investors. See the Commission’s Motion.

On September 1, 2023, the Court granted the Commission’s motion and entered an order to disburse $41,532,229.44 from the Fair Fund for distribution to eligible investors. See the Court’s Order.

SEC v. Tesla Fair Fund
c/o Rust Consulting, Inc.
Telephone Number: 877-576-9981
Website: https://secvteslafairfund.com/
Email: info@SECvTeslaFairFund.com