The audiobook industry is in the cusp of a major change, with a new technology from Apple using AI-narrated features that promises to make audiobook production more accessible to independent and indie publishers, according to Apple’s website. This means we, as audiobook listeners, could potentially enjoy more audiobooks selections at lower prices in the future. In the meantime, though, here are several ways you can score audiobooks for free.
Net Galley
You’ve probably heard of free movie screening websites, like Gofobo, where you can get invited to watch an upcoming movie before it comes out—there’s a website that does the same thing for audiobooks. Net Galley gives you access to the latest books and audiobooks by distributing digital galleys, or advanced reader copies (ARCs), in exchange for an honest review with the intention of creating hype for the book.
You need approval from the website, but it’s easy if you use Goodreads, Amazon, or BookBub to write books reviews because you can sync those profiles when setting up your Net Galley account. Even if you’ve never used those accounts or written a review of a book, you can still apply; they want regular book advocates in addition to professional book reviewers to review as many ARCs as possible.
Libby
Libby is OverDrive’s mobile app to get free access to e-books, audiobooks, and magazines from your library—all you need is a library card from your local public library. Like a library, Libby only allows you to borrow a certain amount of audiobooks or e-books at a time, but the app allows you to listen or read your borrowed content off-line. Plus, all your devices are synced, so you can listen on your computer at home, and then pick up where you left off on your phone when you get in your car.
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Libby is only for digital content and is available for Android and iOS, browsers Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge, and the Microsoft Store if you use Windows. You can also send your borrowed content to your Kindle if you don’t want to read it on your phone or computer (if you have one of the newer Kindles that supports the feature).
According to OverDrive, over 90% of public libraries in North America have OverDrive, so odds are, your library uses it. You can check if they do here. OverDrive originally had an app named after their company, but it was discontinued in early 2022 and replaced by Libby.
Hoopla
Similarly to Libby, Hoopla is an app that allows you to borrow audiobooks and e-books from your local library for free if you have a card, but it also gives you access to movies, music, and graphic novels. The way you borrow on Hoopla is different from Libby, though; instead of working like a real-life physical library, Hoopla allows you to borrow any of their content immediately with no wait time. So you can get the latest popular audiobook regardless of how many people are checking it out at the same time. However, Hoopla limits you to 10 items you can check out each month.
Hoopla’s interface is not as user-friendly as Libby’s, but it has a larger selection of content to choose from. It also syncs across devices and picks up where you left off. They both have their pros and cons, but they are both free and can complement each other.
Public domain websites
Content that enters the public domain is any book where nobody holds the copyrights to them, and are therefore free to distribute. Most are converted to audiobooks and e-books by volunteers and distributed through many websites. Most of the content is old-time classics published before 1923, meaning you can find nuggets like Homer’s Lliad and The Odyssey, The Richest Man in Babylon, and The Great Gatsby. Here are some websites where you can get these audiobooks from.
Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk saw his wealth plummet by $100 billion dollars this year, bringing his net worth to somewhere between $170 billion and $182 billion, according to estimates from Bloomberg and Forbes. That’s down from an estimated $340 billion in November 2021. The drop comes as Tesla shares decreased to a two-year low this week, reducing Musk’s wealth by about $8.6 billion in just one day.
Musk reportedly owns around a 15 percent stake in Tesla shares which has decreased by 58.03% year to date, according to Bloomberg. He sold nearly $15.5 billion of his Tesla stock to finance his purchase of Twitter earlier this month.
Tesla accounts for the bulk of Musk’s fortune but has faced revenue decreases due to the ongoing covid-19 restrictions in China and a recent recall of 300,000 Tesla vehicles due to faulty taillights in addition to soaring costs of materials. His net worth continued to take a hit after he acquired Twitter for $44 billion—the largest buyout of a technology company in history.
Musk also had to recently defend the near $56 billion payment package Tesla handed him years ago in court. Richard Tornetta, who owns some Tesla shares, filed the lawsuit back in 2019 claiming the Tesla board offered Musk an overly generous pay package even though he was spending only about half his time at the electric car maker. His new hobby as ‘Chief Twit’ has only amplified claims that he’s spreading himself too thin.
Despite the setbacks, Musk still remains the wealthiest person in the world, coming in above the runner-up, Bernard Arnault, by around $65 billion. Musk is not the only tech executive whose net worth has dropped this year, as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’, and Alphabet co-founder Larry Page have all also experienced significant financial setbacks according to Bloomberg.
On Friday evening, Tesla CEO Elon Musk finally made it crystal clear that he has no interest in adding “owner of Twitter” to his list of titles. The move was months in the making. Twitter is planning to sue in response.
In a letter to Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk notified the social media company that he would terminate the $44 billion acquisition deal he made in late April. However, it is not yet clear whether Musk can unilaterally end the agreement.
Musk has fixated on the number of spam accounts on the social network. Citing their proliferation of automated bots, he first claimed Twitter was in breach of its merger agreement in early June. Musk’s lawyers argue that the billionaire is backing out of the agreement because “Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that Agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr. Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect.”
Twitter plans to sue Musk in response. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal retweeted the company’s board chairman Bret Taylor’s promise of legal action minutes after the news broke in defiance of the Tesla CEO.
“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” Taylor wrote.
In an email to staff on Friday obtained by the Verge, Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel, told folks not to share any commentary on the merger on Twitter or Slack.
“Given that this is an ongoing legal matter, you should refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the merger agreement. We will continue to share information when we are able, but please know we are going to be very limited on what we can share in the meantime,” Edgett wrote. “I know this is an uncertain time, and we appreciate your patience and ongoing commitment to the important work we have underway.”
Jesse Fried, a Harvard Law School professor, told Gizmodo in an email on Friday that Musk could not “simply walk away from the deal” and is probably trying to lower the price of the acquisition.
“He is bound to buy Twitter if he has adequate financing, as it seems he does. There are narrow outs,” Fried said. “Given the contract and Twitter’s post-signing conduct, Musk is highly unlikely to get a Delaware court to give him a ‘get-out-of-merger free card.’ He has presumably been told that by his lawyers.”
The news that Musk is backing out of the acquisition agreement follows months of public buyer’s remorse expressed on Twitter itself. The company says automated bots and spam accounts make up just 5% of the social network’s users, a figure Musk believed was much higher. He requested and received more data on Twitter’s user base but ultimately said the information provided was insufficient.
On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the billionaire’s deal to acquire Twitter was in “serious jeopardy” and that Musk had stopped engaging in funding discussions. The outlet cited doubts from Musk’s team over the data provided on the number of fake accounts and spam bots provided to it by Twitter.
The back-and-forth with Musk has had detrimental effects on Twitter. The stock price of the company had fallen to $36.10 as of Friday, well below the $54.20 he offered. The company laid off members of its recruiting team on Friday as well, though layoffs have struck the tech industry writ large as the stock market has tumbled in recent months. Musk cited the layoffs in his deal termination letter as well as several high-profile resignations. In June, amid a flurry of Musk mayhem, Twitter said it was still committed to closing the deal and hinted that it was unafraid to take legal action. When asked about the Post’s report early today, Twitter reiterated its June response: “We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement.”
Musk, Twitter’s largest shareholder, has behaved like Twitter’s owner for weeks now: He’s taken questions from Twitter employees in a town hall, given them product advice (make Twitter more like TikTok).
Fried said it’s all probably just a game to Musk.
“Litigation will be costly for Twitter, and it may agree to lower the price to settle the litigation. This is probably Musk’s game plan here,” the professor said.
Musk’s lawyers delved into further detail of Twitter’s perceived slights and contract violations, the majority of which centered on the blue bird company apparently declining to provide or providing incomplete information to the billionaire.
The billionaire’s accusations are as follows:
Spam and Fake Accounts
As is to be expected, Musk complained about a lack of information from Twitter related to Twitter’s spam and fake accounts. His lawyers state that the social media company did not provide the following:
“(1) daily global mDAU data since October 1, 2020; (2) information regarding the sampling population for mDAU, including whether the mDAU population used for auditing spam and false accounts is the same mDAU population used for quarterly reporting; (3) outputs of each step of the sampling process for each day during the weeks of January 30, 2022 and June 19, 2022; (4) documentation or other guidance provided to contractor agents used for auditing mDAU samples; (5) information regarding the user interface of Twitter’s ADAP tool and any internal tools used by the contractor agents; and (6) mDAU audit sampling information, including anonymized information identifying the contractor agents and Quality Analyst that reviewed each sampled account, the designation given by each contractor agent and Quality Analyst, and the current status of any accounts labelled “compromised.”
The billionaire said he did not receive data on the methodology Twitter uses to suspend spam and fake accounts.
According to the letter, Musk apparently wanted “access to the sample set used and calculations performed” to determine that less than 5% of Twitter’s mDAUs are fake or spam accounts, which is what the company claims. The request included the daily measures of mDAUs for the past eight quarters. The letter states that the social media company has provided “certain summary data” regarding its mDAU calculations, but not the complete daily measures. In addition, Musk requested materials provided to Twitter’s board about mDAUs’ calculations. Again, he claims he received incomplete information.
“Preliminary analysis by Mr. Musk’s advisors of the information provided by Twitter to date causes Mr. Musk to strongly believe that the proportion of false and spam accounts included in the reported mDAU count is wildly higher than 5%,” the letter states.
Materials Related to Twitter’s Financial Condition
Furthermore, the billionaire’s lawyers claim that he is entitled to certain financial data related to Twitter, including information that aims to help him secure financing for the deal. Musk purported asked for a Twitter’s financial model and budget for 2022, an updated draft plan or budget, and a “working copy” of the Goldman Sachs’ valuation model. He reportedly has only received a PDF copy of Goldman Sachs’ final board presentation.
Access to APIs and Query Restriction
When Musk was provided with information, his lawyers claim it came “with strings attached.” For instance, they claim that Musk was initially not given the same access given to customers to eight Twitter developer APIs. This was only remedied after explaining the lack of access to the company.
Nonetheless, the APIs reportedly contain a “query cap” that prevents Musk and his team from carrying out their desired analyses of the data. The cap was only removed after Musk complained about it twice.
Twitter Fired Two High-Level Execs, Laid Off People, and Froze Hiring
Finally, Musk’s lawyers state that Twitter was obliged to “preserve substantially intact the material components of its current business organization,” something they claim it did not do. The violations in this area began when the blue bird app fired Kayvon Beykpour and Bruce Falck, its general manager of product and general manager of revenue, respectively, in May.
The letter also cites Twitter laying off 30% of its talent acquisition team this past Thursday and its hiring freeze. As if that wasn’t enough, Musk is also purportedly mad that Twitter didn’t stop its head of data science; the vice president of Twitter service; and a vice president of product management for health, conversation, and growth from leaving.
“The Company has not received Parent’s consent for changes in the conduct of its business,” Musk’s lawyers wrote.
Update 7/9/2022, 6:26 a.m. ET: This post has been updated with information about Edgett’s email to staff.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has bought or offered to buy a lot of big weird things, including Twitter and a horse for the flight attendant he allegedly showed his penis to and propositioned for sex in 2016. But as The Beatles famously crooned: Money can’t buy you love.
TMZ reports that Elon Musk’s trans daughter, née Xavier Musk, has turned 18 and filed paperwork in L.A. County court to change her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson, citing “Gender Identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
Musk has claimed in the past to support LGBTQ+ rights, but also tweets gross offensive shit like this about people announcing their pronouns:
Ironically, the chronic shitposter and father of seven recently warned that people need to start having more babies, or “civilization is going to crumble.” Nevermind that former Telsa employees claim they were fired for being pregnant or taking maternity leave, that Elon named his latest baby a math equation and admitted he doesn’t really help to take care of him, and now that his own daughter wants to drop his last name and entirely disassociate from him.
TMZ reports that “neither Elon or Vivian has previously said anything publicly about their relationship or her transition.” And Vivian didn’t specify what exactly she hates so much about her dad. But as Jezebel’s Kylie Cheung wrote, Musk is literally buying Twitter for the purpose of platforming the kind of far-right trolls who don’t believe his trans daughter should have a right to exist.
Musk has frequently cited a reverence for “free speech” as the reason for his interest in Twitter, despite the obvious reality that the 50-year-old’s latest obsession is very much rooted in some sort of sad mid-life crisis. But his promise to foster freer speech on the platform is more than a little concerning, nonetheless: To Very Online, libertarian provocateurs such as Musk, “free speech” often refers to unchecked harassment of women, LGBTQ people, and people of color, and trolls debating their human rights to feel smart. Under Musk’s leadership, Tesla’s factory faces a number of lawsuits for rampant racism “reminiscent of Jim Crow,” as well as endemic sexual harassment and even assault.
Vivian’s hearing is set for Friday, and we wish her all the best.
J.J. AbramsPhoto: Emma McIntyre (Getty Images for TCM)
When J.J. Abrams opens a mystery box, we expect him to toy with us for somewhere between two and 92 hours before reaching a serviceable but not wholly satisfying answer to anything.
Unfortunately, some mystery boxes will never be closed.
J.J. Abrams’ Demimonde is no more. Not that it ever was. But now, it can never be. HBO has killed the project they won in a bidding war with Apple in 2018. The series was to be Abrams’ first original TV creation since 2008. However, HBO didn’t want to pay more than $200 million on a show with a French title—at least not properties that don’t include the words “Joker” and “Two.”The Hollywood Reporter puts it in perspective: Even House Of The Dragon, the new Game Of Thrones prequel, cost less than $200 million, and that can disappoint fans just as well as Abrams can.
This is the second show to get a pass from HBO since Abrams and Bad Robot entered a multi-million dollar overall deal in 2019. HBO already declined to make a reservation at Overlook, a Shining prequel that would have seemingly built out a Shining-verse that any studio could parlay into a vertical-crossing, paradigm-shifting, network-synergizing behemoth. Now set up at Netflix, Overlook has no release date or cast.
Demimonde was to star Danielle Deadwyler from Station Eleven and Watchmen. Producers are currently shopping the show to other streamers, including Apple, which reportedly pursued a $500 million exclusivity deal with Abrams and Bad Robot that the director turned down. Apparently, he’s still on good terms; Abrams is working on a Wachowski-less Speed Racer TV series, a Presumed Innocent series, and a Jennifer Garner show called My Glory Was I Had Such Friends. He’s also doing a scripted U2 series at Netflix, which he can keep, and another season of Westworld. So there’s no shortage of Abrams, even if we’ll never see whatever Demimonde was.
When I was six, I peed my pants in class because I was too proud to use my public school bathroom. Similarly, suave billionaire and alleged sexual harasser Elon Musk peed his proverbial pants after a Twitter scuffle with the satirical video game site Hard Drive. Neither Musk nor Hard Drive returned a request for comment.
On May 30, Musk posted a screenshot of Hard Drive’s article “Zodiac Killer Letter Solved by Opening It With VLC Media Player” with the site’s name cropped out. This was done in accordance with his belief that online images exist to be stolen—in 2019, Musk tweeted that “no one should be credited with anything ever,” though he is currently very angry that President Joe Biden has not yet publicly acknowledged Tesla as a leading electric vehicle company.
Despite his thinking that crediting artists for their work is “destroying the medium,” Musk did eventually delete the image he swiped from Hard Drive. But it took a battle of wit and stamina to get him there, which is to say that Musk regurgitated a few aphorisms about art and comedy until Hard Drive skewered his approaches to both, making him, presumably, turn his Tesla on Autopilot and cry his way to yet another shareholder lawsuit.
“The selfless art of anonymous meme creators is something to be admired,” Musk tweeted at the Hard Drive Twitter account after it requested credit twice.
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“ok well lemme know what you think about this one,” Hard Drivesaid in response and posted a link to an article titled “Elon Musk Admits He Wants to Travel to Mars Because No One Hates Him There Yet.” Musk did not seem like he wanted to steal that one.
“The reason you’re not that funny is because you’re woke,” he said. “Humor relies on an intuitive & often awkward truth being recognized by the audience, but wokism is a lie, which is why nobody laughs.”
A most intriguing observation indeed. It forces us to ponder why Musk reposted Hard Drive at all. The site’s being “not that funny” and “woke” clearly proves an affront to his discerning taste and sensibility, which includes allegedly showing an unwilling woman his penis. It is also possible that Musk’s condemnation of Hard Drive’s “wokism” stems from some sort of affinity with the Zodiac Killer, the origin of this Twitter spar.
“very funny to me that elon’s example of ‘woke humor’ is an article making fun of the ZODIAC KILLER of all people,” Hard Drive editor-in-chief Jeremy Kaplowitz said. “’woke comedy is ruining everything, man. you used to be able to kill a bunch of people in the 60s and write letters to the police about it, but not anymore.’”
Musk called a Hard Drive writer a coward for blocking him, declared the stolen meme he tweeted to protect a result of a “slow meme day,” and rounded the night off with another pilfered meme. This one was about putting your phone down and going outside. Hopefully, Musk stays online—who else would defend the Zodiac Killer’s honor?
Donald Trump acknowledges SpaceX founder Elon Musk after the successful launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May, 2020.Photo: Joe Raedle (Getty Images)
Free speech is great and all, unless what they’re saying about you is false.
Elon Musk is calling a story published by the New York Post ‘false’ after the outlet originally reported that former President Donald Trump quietly ‘encouraged’ Musk to buy Twitter. The article released Thursday claimed that, according to an interview on Fox Business Network with ex-congressman and Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes, Trump essentially gave Musk a solid pat on the rear to send him off on the races for his Twitter deal, saying the former president “actually said to go and buy it,” with the goal of creating a “family-friendly, safe environment.”
The following day, Musk went to Twitter to stamp out the news, saying “this is false.”
Nunes is probably not a very solid source on any subject, so the claim itself is dubious at best. Still, Musk’s firm denial is a noted bit of irony from a “free speech absolutist” who has no problem making problematic and harmful comments about subjects like mental health.
Trump has publicly said that he will be staying off Twitter despite comments by Musk that the new platform will become a bastion of “free speech.” If you’ve been following along, then you know that Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter after the Jan. 6 insurrection over concerns he’d further incite violence.
Other conservatives have been making wild claims that Musk’s turn as head of Twitter will allow them back on the platform after being banned for various violations to the platform’s terms of service.
The idea that Musk will be allowing anyone to say whatever they want without censor has led to a flood of conservatives getting back onto the platform, some of who had logged off after claiming Twitter’s rules quashed “free speech.”
Some on the right, like Tucker Carlson, falsely implied that Musk’s Twitter purchase had already allowed them back onto the platform, even though all he had to do was delete one offending tweet. Mike Lindell, AKA, the MyPillow Guy, was giving himself a pat on the back for rejoining Twitter Monday only to be banned again in a mere three hours.
Meanwhile, Musk’s apparent plans for Twitter include a heavy emphasis on “hardcore software engineering, design, infosec & server hardware,” according to a recent tweet.
Although he’s emphasizing the idea that people are chomping at the bit to get onto Musk’s new Twitter team, even as the deal is not fully formed, current employees are nervous that all their efforts to curtail misinformation on the platform will be reversed if Musk takes charge.
Last December, Grimes released a new song from her upcoming album “Book 1.” The track, called “Player of Games,” was speculated to be inspired by her relationship with Elon Musk. One of the lyrics, “I’m in love with the greatest gamer,” got me thinking: what kind of video games does Musk play when he’s not reinventing public transit or allegedly abusing his employees?
A recent Vanity Fairinterview with Grimes revealed that Musk’s latest obsession is The Battle of Polytopia, which he describes as a “much more complex version of chess.” Apparently, he’s even beaten the creator at his own game at least once, which he’s very proud of. While he’s obviously boasting about his big brain for his fawning fans, I wouldn’t be a video game journalist if I didn’t check out the game for myself. So, I downloaded Polytopia and played a single game.
The Battle of Polytopia is a civilization simulator in which you control one of twelve different “tribes.” You try to expand the territory of your empire by collecting resources, exploring uncharted territory, and destroying rival civilizations. In short, it’s the exact sort of game that might appeal to a white billionaire who benefitted from apartheid in South Africa. He loves it so much that at one point, Polytopia was added as a playable game to Tesla cars—you know, before the government started asking questions about a feature that might take your attention away from driving.
Read More:Genshin Impact Cancels Elon Musk Event Following Fan Pushback
I played one game, which lasted twenty-five rounds. Every round, I could move my military units one space across the map, and I would be rewarded with stars each turn. These resources could be invested into extractive technologies for things like forestry or fishing, or they could be put into new kinds of soldiers. The goal was to wipe out as many enemy factions as possible before the turn limit.
Polytopia is not as complex as Musk described. If anything, winning against the computer-controlled enemies was easier than any chess game I’ve ever played. There were more opponents than in a chess game, but its difficulty was inherently constrained by the number of possible actions per turn. Polytopia is an approachable game for newcomers to the civilization builder genre, but it’s definitely not what I expected from the so-called “Player of Games.”
The concept of an HBO show has changed over the years, from genre-defining “prestige dramas” like The Sopranos, to edgy/weird comedies like Curb Your Enthusiasm, to extremely expensive movie-level spectacles like Game Of Thrones, but even as the attention garnered by the spectacles seemed to overwhelm everything else, a little show called Euphoriahas been trucking along, dominating the cultural conversation with its trippy, high-stakes stories about teens and drugs and sex and Zendaya.
And now, as of last night’s season finale, Euphoria is now the second-most watched show “since 2004” on HBO, with the first being Game Of Thrones. That stat comes from HBO itself (via Variety), so there’s no explanation for that “since 2004” thing (maybe some mid-run Deadwood or Sopranos season was technically bigger but HBO doesn’t want to waste some good PR for Euphoria?), but the point is that Euphoria is huge.
So huge that Variety says the per-episode ratings are up “nearly 100 percent” from the first season, and it hit “a new series high” with the episode that aired opposite the Super Bowl earlier this month. Who would’ve thought that there’s not much crossover between the audiences for Euphoria and the Super Bowl?
It’s worth underlining that this is all coming from HBO, so it is just meaningless HBO propaganda (like when Netflix brags about how popular its original content is), but its decision to trumpet this fact does at least indicate that HBO is very happy with Euphoria. Also, speaking of meaningless things, the show is the “most-tweeted TV show of the decade (so far),” according to a separate Variety report.
If that were a thing that mattered, though, we’d all be hearing about… 9-1-1: Lone Star a lot more than we currently do. (As of this writing, it’s one of the shows that’s currently trending on Twitter and the one that lends itself best to this kind of joke. WWE Raw and The Bachelor aren’t as funny, you see.)
If you’re eager to see what this Euphoria hype is about, the second season just finished and it’s already been renewed for a third.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, after being accused by Tesla CEO Elon Musk this week of conducting a “harassment campaign” against him, has responded with a reminder to Musk that this level of federal scrutiny was part of the deal he agreed to after his shitposting landed him in hot water.
In 2018, the SEC charged Musk with issuing “false and misleading” statements to investors after he tweeted that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share. The deal never materialized, and following an investigation, the SEC alleged that Musk’s tweet constituted fraud. Tesla, Musk, and the SEC eventually agreed to settle the case, and as part of the conditions, Musk was forced to temporarily step down as chairman of Tesla’s board. Additionally, Tesla and Musk paid a total of $40 million in fines and agreed to screen some of Musk’s social media posts through a securities law expert before publishing them online.
On Thursday, Tesla and Musk sent a letter to U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan, the federal judge overseeing the proceedings, accusing the SEC of using its resources to conduct “endless, unfounded investigations” into the company and its CEO.
“The SEC seems to be targeting Mr. Musk and Tesla for unrelenting investigation largely because Mr. Musk remains an outspoken critic of the government,” wrote Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro. Additional allegations included that the regulator had been trying to “muzzle and harass” Musk, and its frequent check-ins seemed “calculated to chill” the billionaire’s exercise of his First Amendment rights.
The letter went on to claim the SEC had “broken promises” by dragging its feet to distribute the $40 million settlement to Tesla shareholders, another condition of the deal.
The SEC’s Stephen Buchholz responded in a letter to the courts Friday that the ongoing investigative activity Tesla and Musk were characterizing as harassment was actually consistent with the expectations outlined by the court overseeing the settlement. And it’s not as if Musk hasn’t given the regulator ample reason to continue its scrutiny: In the years since the settlement, the SEC has written to Tesla repeatedly asking why certain tweets containing material business information weren’t screened by the company’s lawyers as per their agreement. Musk, being the troll he is, also seems all too happy to keep poking the hornet’s nest, antagonizing the SEC with tweets like this one from July 2020: “SEC, three letter acronym, middle word is Elon’s.”
As for getting the money to shareholders, the SEC said that process remains underway but should wrap up within the next month. It also noted neither Tesla nor Musk had ever expressed concerns about this matter to the agency before.
“Given the complexity of the distribution, it has taken time to develop the plan of allocation,” Buchholz wrote. “That process is nearing completion and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the Distributions staff expects to submit the proposed plan of distribution for the Court’s approval by the end of March 2022.”
Now that the SEC has responded to Tesla’s allegations, it’s unclear what the next steps for the proceedings might be. Judge Nathan has previously asked the two sides to work through their dispute rather than throw the matter back to the courts, the Wall Street Journal reports. But given Musk’s penchant for theatrics and sparking legal battles, that solution seems unlikely.