Getty Images Elon Musk 
 
 A statement from Tesla’s board members on Wednesday raises further questions following the shock tweet from Elon Musk that he wants to take the auto maker private. 
 
 The brief news release from Tesla board members—Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm, Ira Ehrenpreis, Antonio Gracias, Linda Johnson Rice, and James Murdoch—consisted of three sentences: 
 
 Last week, Elon opened a discussion with the board about taking the company private. This included discussion as to how being private could better serve Tesla’s long-term interests, and also addressed the funding for this to occur. The board has met several times over the last week and is taking the appropriate next steps to evaluate this. 
 
 Two board members, venture capital investor Steve Jurvetson as well as Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, didn’t sign on to the statement. (Jurvetson has taken leave from Tesla after being accused of sexual harassment.) 
 
 The statement from members of Tesla Inc.’s TSLA, +5.77% board does show there was a discussion of how he could fund such a bid. But the board’s statement leaves open the crucial question of whether they were satisfied that—as Musk’s surprise tweet put it—he had enough backing to assert “funding secured.” 
 
 At $420 a share, the price at which Musk tweeted he was considering setting the bid, the deal would be valued at $72 billion before debt. 
 
 Related: A Tesla buyout would be the largest in history—by a wide margin 
 
 Tesla shares were down more than 1% early Wednesday, after surging by about 11% on Tuesday. The electric-car maker’s stock has climbed by 21% so far this year. By comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +3.29% is set for a year-to-date gain of 3.5%, the S&P 500 index SPX, +3.43% is on track for a return of 6.8%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, +4.26% has advanced by more than 14% so far this year, according to FactSet data. Tesla’s run-up comes despite the company being a consistent target of investors aiming to short the its stock, or bet against Tesla’s shares rising. 
 
 Another crucial question raised by the statement is the timing. “Last week” predates Tesla’s filing on Monday of its 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which didn’t mention such discussions. 
 
 News of a takeover would certainly be considered material, yet it wasn’t disclosed until Musk’s tweet on Tuesday. 
 
 Another question is what the “appropriate next steps” are, though that’s probably the imminent formation of a committee to evaluate the bid. 
 
 What was left out of the statement also is worth considering. For instance, there was no indication that the board was satisfied with either Musk’s method or timing for announcing the approach, though they didn’t rebuke him, either. 
 
 Murdoch also sits on the board of News Corp., which owns MarketWatch, the publisher of this report. 
 
 Related: Did Elon Musk break any laws with his going-private tweet? 
 
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 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. ||||| LISTEN TO ARTICLE 7:17 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email 
 
 Tesla Inc.’s board backed embattled Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued the billionaire for his explosive August tweet about a buyout of the electric-car company he founded. The shares fell 10 percent in pre-market trading. 
 
 The SEC is seeking unspecified monetary penalties and, more importantly, will ask a judge to bar Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public company, the agency said in a lawsuit filed in New York. Musk misled investors by claiming falsely that he had lined up funding for the transaction, the suit alleged. 
 
 Tesla and its board “are fully confident in Elon, his integrity, and his leadership of the company,” they said in a joint statement Thursday. “Our focus remains on the continued ramp of Model 3 production and delivering for our customers, shareholders and employees.” 
 
 The prospect of Musk losing control of Tesla unnerved investors already worried about the company’s ability to produce cars fast enough to start generating profits. They dumped the stock, deepening a selloff that began as the go-private gambit quickly unraveled in August. 
 
 “Musk’s statements were false and misleading,” Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said at a press conference in Washington. “They lacked any basis in fact.” 
 
 In the lawsuit and at the news conference, the SEC officers went to great lengths to spell out the Tesla CEO’s carelessness and his erratic behavior -- from threatening to “burn” short-sellers who targeted Tesla stock to seeking to amuse his girlfriend, the pop singer Grimes, by weaving in a “marijuana culture” reference to his go-private bid. (He set a buyout price of $420, a number he landed on in part because it’s code for marijuana consumption.) 
 
 Musk, a serial entrepreneur whose name is synonymous with Tesla, called the lawsuit “unjustified” and said it left him “deeply saddened and disappointed.” 
 
 “I have always taken action in the best interests of truth, transparency and investors,” he said in a statement. “Integrity is the most important value in my life and the facts will show I never compromised this in any way.” 
 
 Tesla, based in Palo Alto, California, wasn’t named in the SEC suit. 
 
 Read More on Musk and Tesla SEC’s Move Against Elon Musk was Unusually Quick, Experts Say 
 
 Musk Picked Weed-Linked Price to Impress Girlfriend, SEC Says 
 
 
 
 Musk SEC Suit May Rob Tesla of Most-Valuable U.S. Carmaker Crown 
 
 Tesla Without Musk? SEC Raises Once Unthinkable Prospect 
 
 Raises Once Unthinkable Prospect Musk SEC Suit May Rob Tesla of Most-Valuable U.S. Carmaker Crown 
 
 The SEC had crafted a settlement with Musk that it was preparing to file Thursday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. Musk’s lawyers called SEC lawyers to say they were no longer interested in proceeding with the agreement, it said. 
 
 The controversy began when Musk shot off a tweet on Aug. 7 saying he was considering taking the company private and had secured funding for a deal. Tesla shares soared immediately afterward. “In truth and in fact, Musk had not even discussed, much less confirmed, key deal terms, including price, with any potential funding source,” the SEC said in the complaint. 
 
 Even before the go-private tweet, the SEC was investigating issues at Tesla including its car sales projections. In addition to the SEC suit, the Justice Department is also looking into whether Musk misled investors, Bloomberg News has reported. 
 
 Timeline 
 
 On July 31, the SEC said in its complaint, Musk met with three members of a “sovereign wealth fund” at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, for approximately 30 to 45 minutes. In that meeting, a member of the fund expressed interest in taking Tesla private. Musk took that to mean he was proposing a “standard” going-private transaction, but the terms were not discussed. 
 
 Musk has previously said he was talking to Saudi investors about a plan to take the company private. 
 
 On Aug. 2, Musk sent an email to the company’s board of directors, chief financial officer and general counsel with a subject line of “Offer to Take Tesla Private at $420.” In the email, Musk explained he wanted to sidestep the “constant defamatory attacks by the short-selling community, resulting in great harm to our valuable brand.” 
 
 On Aug. 6, Musk discussed a potential takeover with an unnamed private equity executive who has experience with such transactions. That executive told Musk that such a deal was “unprecedented” in his experience. 
 
 The next day, Musk tweeted from his mobile phone: “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” Shares rose 11 percent and trading volume spiked. About 12 minutes later, Tesla’s head of investor relations sent a text to Musk’s chief of staff asking, “Was this text legit?” 
 
 ‘Rationale and Structure’ 
 
 About 20 minutes later, the company’s chief financial officer texted Musk: “Elon, am sure you have thought about a broader communication on your rationale and structure to employees and potential investors. Would it help if [Tesla’s head of communications], [Tesla’s General Counsel], and I draft a blog post or employee email for you?” 
 
 Musk responded, “Yeah, that would be great.” 
 
 Tesla’s chief financial officer then replied, “Working on it. Will send you shortly.” 
 
 Musk didn’t clarify his statement until an Aug. 13 blog post in which he tried to walk back the tweet. On Aug. 24, the company announced that it would not be pursuing a buyout. 
 
 “Musk made his false and misleading public statements about taking Tesla private using his mobile phone in the middle of the active trading day,” the SEC said. “He did not discuss the content of the statements with anyone else prior to publishing them to his over 22 million Twitter followers and anyone else with access to the Internet. He also did not inform Nasdaq that he intended to make this public announcement, as Nasdaq rules required.” 
 
 "Musk’s false and misleading statements and omissions caused significant confusion and disruption in the market for Tesla’s stock and resulting harm to investors," the SEC went on to say. 
 
 While the filing of the lawsuit wasn’t necessarily surprising, the speed with which it was pulled together shocked many long-time watchers of the SEC, an agency known for being much more deliberate in its actions. Steve Peikin, the SEC’s other co-enforcement director, said the agency felt that the impact would be greatest if the case was brought soon after the alleged misconduct. 
 
 “We conducted a swift investigation here,” Peikin said at the news conference. “The investigation was complete and it was time to make a charging decision and we made one." 
 
 The request to bar Musk from serving as a corporate officer -- which would apply to all publicly traded companies -- could force him to try to reach a settlement quickly. Otherwise, he risks leaving investors wondering about the fate of a company whose image has become intertwined with that of its maverick CEO. 
 
 Tesla fell 10 percent to $277 at 5 a.m New York time in trading before U.S. exchanges opened. 
 
 “It’s unusual for a case of this significance to move this quickly, in particular when you’ve got a high-profile individual,” said Robert Long, a former SEC enforcement attorney now in private practice at Bell Nunnally in Dallas. Still, because the investigation was narrowly focused on several tweets, he said the agency “could have conducted its investigation quickly.” 
 
 — With assistance by Patricia Hurtado, Joshua Fineman, Tom Schoenberg, Jesse Hamilton, Jamie Butters, and Dana Hull
– Elon Musk wasn't blowing smoke. The BBC reports on a three-sentence statement issued by six of Tesla's nine board members saying the board had "met several times over the last week" to discuss Musk's proposal to take the company private, which he announced via an unexpected tweet Tuesday. The talks "included discussion as to how being private could better serve Tesla's long-term interests" and the statement ends by saying the board "is taking the appropriate next steps to evaluate this." The three board members who did not sign the statement are Musk, brother Kimbal Musk, and a board member who is on leave, reports the Wall Street Journal. At MarketWatch, Steve Goldstein flags some unresolved points: The statement didn't elaborate on Musk's claim of "funding secured" and raised but didn't answer a question of timing. "'Last week' predates Tesla's filing on Monday of its 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which didn't mention such discussions. News of a takeover would certainly be considered material," he writes. Shares of Tesla are currently down about 1%.