Tesla’s board members were reportedly ‘blindsided’ by Elon Musk’s tweet about going private

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• Elon Musk’s decision to tweet that he was considering taking Tesla private reportedly caught the company’s own board of directors off-guard, The New York Times reported Monday night.
• That August 7 tweet caused Tesla’s stock to skyrocket to $380 per share that day.
• In the days that followed, the SEC got involved, reportedly investigating Musk’s online musings about taking the company private.
• The fallout from that tweet follows an extended run of public missteps by the Tesla CEO.

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Elon Musk’s decision to tweet that he was considering taking Tesla private reportedly caught some of the company’s own board directors off guard, The New York Times reported on Monday.

Citing two people familiar with the internal response to Musk’s August 7 tweet, The Times said the Tesla CEO had sent that tweet “with little forethought.”

The decision to announce the plan, which Musk has since expanded upon, via Twitter “had not been cleared ahead of time with the company’s board,” The Times wrote.

The reported added that “some members of the board had been totally blindsided by Mr. Musk’s decision to air his plan on Twitter.”

According to two unnamed people familiar with the fallout who talked to The Times about Musk’s online musings, the Tesla CEO allegedly told an informal adviser that he posted on Twitter “impulsively,” and said he was “not the kind of person who could hold things in,” and admitted he “was angry at the company’s critics.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission has inquired about Musk’s claims, which, if found to be untrue, could cause greater problems for Tesla chief executive.

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