WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sent subpoenas to Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) regarding Chief Executive Elon Musk’s plan to take the company private and his statement that funding was “secured,” Fox Business Network reported on Wednesday, citing sources. 
 
 The electric carmaker’s shares fell as much as 4 percent but cut their losses after Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) said it was dropping equity coverage of Tesla because it is acting as a financial adviser on a matter related to the automaker. 
 
 Investors viewed the Goldman statement as confirming a tweet from Elon Musk on Monday about working with Goldman, even as the reported subpoenas indicated the SEC has opened a formal investigation into a matter. 
 
 The latest news extended the roller-coaster ride for Tesla investors in recent days, adding to uncertainty about the future course of the company and whether a deal can be done amid growing regulatory complications. 
 
 Tesla and the SEC declined to comment. 
 
 Musk stunned investors and sent Tesla’s shares soaring 11 percent when he tweeted early last week that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and that he had secured funding for the potential deal. 
 
 The shares fell 2.6 percent to $338.69 on Wednesday, below $341.99, their closing price the day before Musk tweeted his plan to take Tesla private. 
 
 The Tesla CEO provided no details of his funding until Monday, when he said in a blog on Tesla’s website that he was in discussions with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and other potential backers but that financing was not yet nailed down. 
 
 Musk also tweeted late Monday night he was working with Goldman Sachs and private equity firm Silver Lake as financial advisers. However, as of Tuesday, Goldman was still negotiating its terms of engagement with Musk, according to a person familiar with the matter. 
 
 The 47-year old billionaire’s tweet about secured funding may have violated U.S. securities law if he misled investors. On Monday, lawyers told Reuters Musk’s statement indicated he had good reason to believe he had funding but seemed to have overstated its status by saying it was secured. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: Tesla Motors Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk pauses during a news conference in Tokyo September 8, 2014. Musk said on Monday that he would not be surprised if there was a significant deal with Toyota Motor Corp in the next two to three years, though there were no definitive plans. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo 
 
 The SEC has opened an inquiry into Musk’s tweets, according to one person with direct knowledge of the matter. Reuters was not immediately able to ascertain if this had escalated into a full-blown investigation on Wednesday. 
 
 This source said Tesla’s independent board members had hired law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP to help handle the SEC inquiry and other fiduciary duties with respect to a potential deal. 
 
 The Wall Street Journal said the SEC was seeking information from each Tesla director. ||||| Tesla CEO Elon Musk has attracted controversy for tweets he sent about the possibility of taking Tesla private. Kiichiro Sato / Associated Press 
 
 Tesla is facing another lawsuit accusing CEO Elon Musk of manipulating the company's stock price. The suit follows two lawsuits filed against the company last week by investors alleging securities fraud. 
 
 A complaint filed on Monday in US District Court in California alleges that some investors purchased Tesla stock "at artificially inflated prices and suffered significant losses and damages once the truth emerged" that Musk had not secured the funding necessary to convert Tesla into a private company for $420 per share, as he said on August 7. 
 
 "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured," Musk said via Twitter. 
 
 "Investor support is confirmed. Only reason why this is not certain is that it's contingent on a shareholder vote," he later said. 
 
 Tesla's share price surged after Musk's first tweet, rising by as much as 12%, to over $381, before settling at $379.57 when trading closed on August 7. But by the end of trading on August 9, it had fallen to $352.45 as reports emerged that the Securities and Exchange Commission made an inquiry into Tesla about whether one of Musk's tweets regarding the possibility of taking the company private was truthful. 
 
 According to the lawsuit, "Musk's tweets were an ill-conceived attempt to manipulate the stock price of Tesla upward in order to burn investors who had sold Tesla stock short," and, "had the desired effect of creating a massive one-day increase in the price of Tesla stock and causing short sellers large losses." 
 
 Tesla declined Business Insider's request for comment. 
 
 On Monday, Musk said in a statement that he used the phrase "funding secured" because he believed there was "no question" Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund would provide funding for a deal to convert Tesla into a private company after a July 31 meeting with the fund's managing director. 
 
 But Musk didn't mention any legally-binding agreements that were in place at the time he sent the August 7 tweet and said he was in discussions with the Saudi fund and other investors, which suggested some sources of funding were not be settled before the tweet was sent. 
 
 On Tuesday, Tesla said its board of directors had formed a special committee to examine Musk's preference to take the company private. ||||| Telsa CEO Elon Musk's latest tweet came as the judge overseeing the settlement on Thursday declined to immediately approve the deal he made with the Securities and Exchange Comission. | Chris Carlson, File/AP Photo Money Musk trolls the SEC with tweet mocking agency 
 
 Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired off a tweet on Thursday that took a not-so-subtle shot at the Securities and Exchange Commission, which on Saturday settled fraud charges with the tech billionaire. 
 
 At 4:16 p.m., Musk tweeted that "the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work. And the name change is so on point!" 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 On Saturday, Musk agreed to step down as Tesla chairman and pay $20 million for an Aug. 7 tweet that said he had "funding secured" for a deal to take the electric car company private. Musk has railed against short sellers who are betting Tesla’s shares will fall and who have raised doubts about the company’s vehicle sales. 
 
 His latest tweet came as the judge overseeing the settlement agreement on Thursday declined to immediately approve the deal, leaving open the possibility it may not go through. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan asked the SEC and Musk to file a joint letter, "explaining why the Court should approve the proposed consent judgment." 
 
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 The SEC settlement, which allowed Musk to remain Tesla’s CEO, required the company to put additional controls in place "to oversee Musk’s communications." 
 
 An SEC representative declined to comment on Musk's tweet, and a Tesla representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The tweet landed after the stock market closed. 
 
 There is a precedent for brash billionaires harassing the SEC after getting in trouble with the agency. 
 
 In 2014, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made a surprise appearance at an SEC meeting in Washington. Dressed in a hoodie, Cuban tweeted jibes at the agency and then held a brief news conference. 
 
 The SEC had charged Cuban with insider trading but lost in court in 2013. 
 
 
 
 This article tagged under: Financial Services ||||| Image copyright Getty Images 
 
 Tesla's board has confirmed that it will consider the proposal by chief executive Elon Musk to take it private. 
 
 A statement was issued by six members of the electric carmaker's board after Mr Musk tweeted to say he had the funding to de-list the company. 
 
 The board had "met several times over the last week" to discuss going private, the statement said. 
 
 They said this "included discussion as to how being private could better serve Tesla's long-term interests". 
 
 Mr Musk said in his tweet on Tuesday that shareholders would be offered $420 (£326) per share, valuing the business at more than $70bn. 
 
 This would make it the biggest deal of its kind, surpassing the purchase of utility TXU Corp in 2007 for $44bn by a consortium. 
 
 The brief statement by six of the nine board directors said Mr Musk had "opened a discussion" about taking the company private last week. 
 
 The discussions "addressed the funding for this to occur", the six directors added. They did not include Mr Musk, his brother Kimbal Musk, and Steve Jurvetson, a venture capitalist. 
 
 'Irregular' announcement 
 
 The board statement came amid questions about how Mr Musk opted to disclose the possible de-listing to investors. 
 
 While companies are allowed to make announcements via social media, typically they also make a simultaneous regulatory filing, said Andrew M Calamari, a partner at the law firm Finn Dixon & Herling and former director of the New York office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US market regulator. 
 
 "Just in terms of the style of this, it strikes me as very irregular," Mr Calamari said. 
 
 "It also raises questions about his intent," he added. "Was he in earnest in what he's saying, or does he have some other motive" like influencing the stock price. 
 
 Tesla shares reached a peak of $368 after Mr Musk's tweets on Tuesday, before trading on the stock market was halted. 
 
 Trades resumed later that afternoon, after the company published an email from Mr Musk to employees elaborating on the plans. 
 
 Tesla shares surged close to their all-time high of $385, which they touched almost a year ago, but fluctuated on Wednesday after the board members issued their statement. 
 
 'Wild swings' 
 
 In the staff memo, Mr Musk explained why he wanted to take the company private. 
 
 "As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are shareholders," he wrote. 
 
 "Being public also subjects us to the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long term," he wrote. 
 
 He added that the company was "the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market" - a trading strategy which assumes share prices will fall - so "being public means that there are large numbers of people who have the incentive to attack the company". 
 
 Those traders are likely to have lost money when the share price rose on the announcement about a delisting. 
 
 Questions continue 
 
 Mr Musk already owns 20% of the company. He said his intention in taking the company private was not to increase his personal holding and his plan would give existing investors the option to retain their shares. 
 
 Regulators are likely to be interested in what evidence exists - such as agreements with investors or banks - for Mr Musk's claim that funding was "secured", Mr Calamari said. 
 
 The Securities and Exchange Commission, the US market regulator, has inquired about the issue, the Wall Street Journal reported. 
 
 The structure of the deal also remains ambiguous, said Adam C Pritchard, professor of securities law at the University of Michigan. 
 
 If more than 2,000 investors opt to retain their shares, then the firm would be subject to the disclosure rules of a public company, he added. 
 
 "Intuitively it doesn't make sense because it would still be a public entity, and the public entity status is what is apparently objectionable to Musk," Mr Pritchard said. 
 
 Steven Kaplan, a University of Chicago professor who researches private equity, said it would be difficult for Mr Musk to raise the necessary finance when Tesla has still not made a profit. 
 
 "The company is cash-flow negative. How do you use any debt on a company that is cash-flow negative?" he said.
– What started on Twitter has ended on the Tesla company blog. Elon Musk announced in a statement posted there late Friday night that the electric car maker would not in fact be going private. He writes, "I knew the process of going private would be challenging, but it’s clear that it would be even more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated." And "although the majority of shareholders I spoke to said they would remain with Tesla if we went private, the sentiment, in a nutshell, was 'please don’t do this.'" The statement elaborates on his meetings with investment firms Silver Lake, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, and Musk says his initial assertion that the funding was there was "reinforced." But "after considering all these factors"—including institutional investors, who said internal rules limit how much they can put into a private company—"I met with Tesla’s board of directors yesterday and let them know that I believe the better path is for Tesla to remain public." The New York Times reports a very brief second statement issued by six of Tesla's directors says the special committee established to look into the feasibility of going private has now been dissolved; the statement also voices the board's "[full] support" for Musk. As for what Musk had to say on Twitter, he simply retweeted the company's tweet of his statement, adding the words, "Staying Public."