Tesla CEO Elon Musk interviewed by CNBC on May 16, 2023.
David A. Grogan | David A Grogan CNBC Money
Twitter suspended the accounts of PlainSite and its founder, Aaron Greenspan. tesla and the Elon Musk critic, Tuesday afternoon.
PlainSite is an online database that provides free access to state and federal court filings and other public records. The site also offers analytics features to paid subscribers designed to help attorneys and private litigants gain insights about attorneys, judges, government offices and the law.
Greenspan has carefully tracked the lawsuits brought by or against companies mainly in the United States, including Tesla, Twitter (which Musk took private last year through an acquisition), and competitors. General Motors, Yuan and countless others. He and Musk have also been embroiled in lawsuits over the years.
When PlainSite’s account was suspended, it had more than 24,000 followers on Twitter. Greenspan’s personal account has about 2,500 followers.
The suspension is inconsistent with public statements made by Twitter executive chairman and chief technology officer Elon Musk and newly appointed CEO Linda Iaccarino. Jacarino previously served as head of global advertising for NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
In April 2022, after Musk announced his intention to acquire Twitter, he wrote in a tweet, “I hope that even my harshest critics will stay on Twitter, because this is what free speech is about.”
A healthy civilization requires “an unfiltered exchange of information and an open dialogue about what matters most to us,” Yacarino wrote in a company-wide memo recently. She also said in the memo, “You should have the freedom to say what you think. We all should.”
Greenspan told CNBC on Thursday that he has not yet received a message from Twitter explaining why the company suspended his account, although he has asked for both accounts to be reinstated.
He also discusses some of the reasons he started PlainSite, a “legal transparency initiative,” and how he’s seen as Elon Musk’s nemesis.
“In 2011, two friends and I started PlainSite because we both wanted to know why Occupy Wall Street wasn’t having the impact we expected,” he recalls. “No financial executives went to jail for the 2008 financial crisis, although it was clear that there was criminal misconduct somewhere. One of the reasons, we think, is that people don’t understand what the law says and what loopholes there are for banks or executives. Being able to take advantage of that to evade responsibility.”
Over the years, Greenspan has shorted stocks of some of the companies he has researched and written about on PlainSite and disclosed his holdings of those positions. He said he is not short Tesla today, but he has been short in the past.
Why PlainSite Started Researching Tesla
PlainSite began focusing on Tesla in 2018 after the SEC charged Musk and Tesla with civil securities fraud.
The allegations came after Musk tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share and had secured funding, halting trading for the day and sending Tesla shares into weeks of volatility Expect.
Musk and Tesla settled with regulators but did not admit guilt or have the ability to claim innocence.
“I wasn’t interested in Tesla until the SEC took action against Tesla and Elon that year,” Greenspan said. “It made me think, given its troubles with financial regulators, it may be overvalued.”
A community on Twitter, including short sellers and other subject matter experts interested in what Tesla was doing, became frequent users and subscribers to PlainSite.
Court documents and public records, easily searchable through PlainSite, often reveal details about Tesla’s troubles and tactics. PlainSite records obtained through FOIA requests have been widely cited by CNBC, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and others.
Since 2018, Greenspan has released court documents and other public records on PlainSite that show:
- Twitter is facing more than 25 lawsuits not paying suppliers Since Elon Musk (Elon Musk) took office in October 2022.
- Despite Musk’s constant promises to shareholders that Tesla will soon launch “Level 4-5” self-driving robotaxis, the company’s Autopilot engineers have classified its state-of-the-art driver assistance system in official communications with the government as “level 2” DMV. Level 2 systems are not self-driving. It requires drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel.
- Complaint sent to Attorney General TexasNevada and Ohioshowing that Tesla customers were unable to get the electric automaker to provide the documents needed to register their vehicles with the local DMV.
- Musk tried to refer former Tesla Gigafactory process technician and whistleblower Martin Tripp to the Nevada U.S. Attorney’s Office Criminal prosecution (p. 192).
- Musk knew, but didn’t tell shareholders, that SolarCity was facing a liquidity crisis when Tesla’s board pushed to buy the solar installer. The company was started by Musk’s cousin, who is the company’s main investor and board member.
May 2020, Greenspan sues Tesla promoter Alleged harassment and named Musk as a party to the harassment in the lawsuit.
February 2023, Musk sues Greenspan Post correspondence between the two of them on Twitter and PlainSite.email is Still available on PlainSite.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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