Elon Musk the founder of Tesla is a racial bigot

It is truly hilarious to see anyone allege that Izzy is "one of mine." We are barely civil to one another and we rarely speak to one another.

Ok. Sorry I said you were irked.

Obviously you’re not irked at all.

Elon Musk's bombshell announcement that he is thinking of taking the electric car company Tesla private has landed him a lawsuit from unhappy investors.

The American entrepreneur said on Tuesday that de-listing from the stock exchange could be the "best path forward" for the firm.

His comments caused the share price to shoot up 11% to nearly $380 (£298), though it has since fallen back.

Short-sellers, who bet on share price falls, allege he misled the market.

Elon Musk has outlined his plan to take Tesla private and said he discussed financing the deal with Saudi Arabia.

The founder of the electric carmaker also indicated that he would need to raise far less than the $70bn it has been estimated he would need.

In a blog post, Mr Musk said that he only wanted to buy out shareholders who no longer wanted to own Tesla shares.

The announcement comes just days after investors filed a lawsuit claiming that he misled the market.

Mr Musk announced on Twitter on 7 August that he was considering taking Tesla private, adding "funding secured".

Since then he has been facing questions about where he would obtain the funding for his proposed $420 a share offer.

Shares in Tesla rose slightly to $357 in morning trading in New York.

Shares in Tesla have fallen 4% on reports that US regulators are seeking to question executives at the firm about its privatisation plans.

Fox News tweeted that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had sent subpoenas to the electric carmaker and was "ramping up" its investigation.

Last week, boss Elon Musk said he was considering taking Tesla private, but some have questioned his intentions.

Both Tesla and the SEC declined to comment on the Fox report.

Tesla Motors Canada is suing the Ontario government, alleging it has suffered "substantial harm" and lost sales amid the cancellation of an electric vehicle rebate.

In mid-July, Ontario Premier Doug Ford scrapped the province's Electric and Hydrogen Vehicle Incentive Program (EHVIP), which was brought in by the previous Liberal government. The program offered rebates of up to $14,000 on qualifying vehicles, so long as they were under $75,000.

When it cancelled the EHVIP, the province promised to honour the incentive for those who have their vehicle delivered, registered and plated if it was purchased from a dealer before Sept. 10. However, the province said the incentive would end immediately for those who ordered their vehicle directly from the manufacturer.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk says he will no longer be taking the electric car maker private, just two weeks after saying he was considering a deal.

The plan was cancelled after a board meeting on Thursday, he wrote in a post published on the company's site.

Since Mr Musk announced his plan to delist Tesla, its share price has dropped by 20%.

He said he had told the board "that I believe the better path is for Tesla to remain public," and that they agreed.

Mr Musk, who owns about a fifth of the company, said he had spoken with shareholders and major banks to consider the privatisation but found the sentiment was "please don't do this".

Earlier this month, Elon Musk shocked investors by announcing on Twitter that he had funding secured to take Tesla private at a value of $72bn (£57bn).

Elon Musk has tweeted again about a man he had previously accused of being a child abuser.

"You don't think it's strange he hasn't sued me? He was offered free legal services," Tesla's chief posted.

The tweet comes more than a month after Mr Musk apologised to the British diving expert Vern Unsworth for calling him a "pedo".

Critics suggest the latest message is further evidence of the tech leader's erratic behaviour on social media.

Mr Unsworth has told the BBC that he does not want to say anything at this stage.

Tesla's shares fell about 1.5% in early trade despite the Nasdaq, on which it trades, opening higher.

Elon Musk has mocked a US financial regulator just days after reaching an agreement with it over fraud charges.

The Tesla boss tweeted the "Shortseller Enrichment Commission", as he dubbed the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), was doing "incredible work".

Last weekend Mr Musk agreed to step down as Tesla chairman and pay a $20m (£15m) fine over tweets that he had funding to take Tesla private.

The deal followed the SEC's decision to sue him for alleged securities fraud.

The SEC declined to comment on Mr Musk's latest tweet.

The SEC's allegation of fraud against Mr Musk related to tweets he posted in August in which he said he was considering taking electronic car maker Tesla off the stock market and into private ownership.

He wrote he had "funding secured" for the proposal, which would value Tesla at $420 per share. Shares in the company briefly rose after his announcement, but later fell again.

The SEC said those claims were "false and misleading".

At the time, short-sellers, who make a profit by borrowing shares, selling them and then buying them back at an expected lower price, claimed to have lost millions thanks to Mr Musk's comments.

The Tesla boss's dislike of short-sellers is well-known: He once called them "jerks who want us to die".

Following his attack on the SEC, Mr Musk referred back to a tweet of his from 2012 in which he had described short-sellers as "unreasonably maligned", indicating that he had changed his view.

"The last several years have taught me that they are indeed reasonably maligned," he tweeted.

"What they do should be illegal."

Under the deal reached between the SEC and Mr Musk last weekend, Mr Musk will remain as Tesla chief executive but has to step down as chairman for three years.

BBC North America technology reporter Dave Lee said many people had expected Mr Musk would "rein in his Twitter habit".

Shares in Tesla closed down 4.4% on Thursday, and fell further in after-hours trading following Mr Musk's tweet.

Also on Thursday, District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan gave Mr Musk and the SEC until 11 October to explain why the deal they had struck was fair and reasonable and would not hurt the public interest.

The US financial regulator has asked a New York judge to hold Tesla boss Elon Musk in contempt for violating a settlement over social media comments.

The move by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) comes after he tweeted about the car firm's production.

Last year, Mr Musk agreed that he would not make statements about Tesla's financial performance without prior agreement with the company.

That settlement followed his tweets in August about taking Tesla private.

There was no immediate comment from either Tesla or Mr Musk on the SEC's move.

Tesla's share price fell 5% in after-hours trading on Wall Street.

Last week Mr Musk posted an aerial picture of thousands of new Tesla vehicles, and followed that by saying he expected the firm to make 500,000 cars in 2019.

In court papers filed in New York on Monday, the SEC said Mr Musk did not get approval before publishing the tweet, which it said was inaccurate and in breach of Mr Musk's agreement. The SEC noted that the tweet was disseminated to more than 24 million people.

"Musk has thus violated the Court's Final Judgment by engaging in the very conduct that the preapproval provision of the Final Judgment was designed to prevent," the SEC wrote in its motion filed on Monday in federal court in Manhattan.

But Mr Musk said the production numbers had been publicly revealed before in a call with financial analysts at the time of Tesla's fourth quarter results.

He also refined the information in a further tweet to: "Meant to say annualized production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k." He also criticised the SEC for not reading the transcript of the analysts' call.

georgeob1 wrote:

I wish him well, but recognize that the real driver for his current sales is a A $7,500 Federal subsidy on each vehicle sold ( even more in California). The Federal subsidy expires soon.

You think the person who is willing to spend $50k-$90k on a Tesla is REALLY motivated by the $7500 tax credit?

Tesla said it is investigating a video on Chinese social media that appears to show one of its vehicles bursting into flames in Shanghai.

In a statement, the carmaker said it had sent a team to investigate the matter, and that there were no reported casualties.

The video, which has not been verified by the BBC, showed a stationary car erupting into flames in a parking lot.

Tesla did not confirm the car model but social media identified it as Model S.

"After learning about the incident in Shanghai, we immediately sent the team to the scene last night," according to a translation of a Tesla statement posted on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

"We are actively contacting relevant departments and supporting the verification. According to current information, there are no casualties."

The video showed smoke rising from a parked, white vehicle and seconds later it bursts into flames.

The time stamp on the video shows the incident happened on Sunday night, local time (Sunday morning GMT).

Previous incidents involving Tesla vehicles catching on fire seem to have happened while the cars were moving.

In 2018, a Tesla car driven by British TV director Michael Morris burst into flames, following another such incident involving a Model S model in France in 2016.

A series of fires involving Tesla Model S cars took place in 2013.

Elon Musk must defend himself in court after calling a diver who helped save Thai schoolboys trapped in a cave a paedophile, a Los Angeles judge says.

The federal court judge set a 22 October trial date.

Mr Musk is being sued by Vern Unsworth, who helped rescue the 12 boys from Thailand's Tham Luang caves.

The Tesla boss called Mr Unsworth a "pedo" in a Twitter post after the Briton said Mr Musk's attempt to help in the rescue was a "PR stunt".

Mr Unsworth helped recruit experienced UK cave divers, who were instrumental in freeing the boys who had become stuck in the cave due to rising water levels in July 2018.

While efforts were ongoing, Mr Musk sent engineers from his Tesla company and a small submarine to Thailand to help free the boys. It was never used.

In an interview with CNN, Mr Unsworth called Mr Musk's efforts a "publicity stunt".

Responding in a series of tweets, Mr Musk elaborated on how the submarine might work and referred to Mr Unsworth as "pedo guy".

Mr Musk soon apologised and deleted the offending tweets, saying he had acted "in anger".

But he reignited the row in September.

In an email to a Buzzfeed reporter, he implored the journalist to "find out what's actually going on" and suggested the diver had taken no part in the cave rescue.

Mr Unsworth is seeking at least $75,000 (£57,700) in compensation plus punitive damages in his September 2018 lawsuit.

The suit also seeks a court order preventing Mr Musk from making any further disparaging comments.

He said the Tesla chief executive defamed him with "unlawful, unsupportable and reprehensible accusations", according to court documents.

In seeking a dismissal, Mr Musk's lawyers argued the comments were "imaginative" or "over-the-top" insults in the heat of the moment that were protected under the US First Amendment.

But the judge said Mr Musk was not communicating in "heated and volatile" settings that might explain any excesses.