Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk twice violated a court order that said his tweets should be vetted before he hit the button, The Wall Street Journal reported today.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the sometimes trigger-happy Musk (pictured) had made an agreement back in 2019 in which Musk agreed that any public communications he makes in regard to Tesla’s business have to be approved first by company lawyers.

That pact came after a 2018 tweet in which Musk said he might be taking Tesla private. The ramifications of that were considerable, with Tesla’s stock price going through the roof. It turned out that Musk seemed to be thinking out loud or possibly issuing a lot of hot air. Lawsuits ensued from people who said they had been misled by the company boss.

Although Musk did not accept any blame for the tweet and the consequent chaos, it was reported that he settled a lawsuit with the SEC and paid $20 million. Part of the deal was that he would not tweet about Tesla’s finances again without his lawyers giving the thumbs-up first.

According to documents that were seen by the Journal, it seems that Musk didn’t play ball on two occasions. On May 1, 2020, he tweeted “Tesla stock price is too high imo,” which resulted in a large drop in the company’s share price and a market value loss of $13 billion. Musk’s own stake apparently went down by $3 billion. Before that, in 2019, he reneged on the deal by talking about solar roof production numbers.

Musk’s 56 million following on Twitter means a sentence or two can have far-reaching ripples, whether that’s drastically affecting the value of a cryptocurrency or propelling the fortune of a company. Just recently it was reported that he was under investigation by the California Department of Motor Vehicles for his claims about Tesla vehicle’s full self-driving capabilities. Some people get their information from Musk’s Twitter feed, and it’s thought they may have been misled into thinking full self-driving means… full self-driving.

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