I totally agree with this. Take the recent Tesla fiasco. Do you think a $20M fine means a damn thing to Musk? That's like $0.01 for most people.
Now a $20M fine and a year in prison would make them think twice. More often than not, they make more in the commission of their crimes than they are fined, so they still come out in the black. In other words, they aren't truly punished.
> I totally agree with this. Take the recent Tesla fiasco. Do you think a $20M fine means a damn thing to Musk? That's like $0.01 for most people.
Elon Musk was forcibly removed as Tesla's chairman. That was the real punishment. Furthermore, Elon Musk agreed that two new board members would be selected by the SEC. Finally, Tesla promised that they'd watch Elon Musk's twitter account better.
The $20 Million was a slap on the wrist. The "real" punishment from the SEC were those new restrictions, which should clamp down on Musk's behavior.
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No one wants to see Tesla or Elon go bankrupt. The SEC just wants Elon to be more factual in his tweets. Neither jail nor fines help anybody.
IMO, the SEC should have threatened Elon Musk's CEO position a bit more (I mean... they could push him out of any officer position in publicly traded companies), but there's a strong argument that Tesla wouldn't survive if Elon were forced out.
"Elon Musk was forcibly removed as Tesla's chairman. That was the real punishment. "
Supporting parent comments, it really wasn't. Poor people often get fines that wipe out most of their money, sometimes cost them jobs, and/or get jail time for low-value crimes. People like Musk get a fine that's a tiny percentage of they and their companies' worth with usually no jail time. I've always been in favor of jailing executives and/or board members for their part in crimes. Even if it's "make the numbers go up or else without giving me details." Oh no, we already know that's how most dodge responsibility. I think companies that do way better on talking to employees and accountability already show it could be done better. And then there's stuff like Undercover Boss showing a lot of problems can be spotted with one, undercover visit. Not even necessarily by CEO.
Right! He settles for twenty (420) million and then goes on to mock the agency he settled with afterwards. People also seem to quickly overlook this and his other bizarre tweets:
I don't think Elon Musk deserves to go to prison for any length of time for that. I understand that he may have been very hasty and made fraudulent claims to investors (arguable considering you can't tell his state of mind).
The United States needs to reduce its prison population, not increase it.
Suggesting he be banned from serving as CEO would be much more reasonable, though I think the fine was more than enough.
It's about a mindset of the purpose and necessity of imprisoning so many people, not an individual case.
Aside from that, do you believe that Elon Musk in particular deserves to have his freedom restricted, be in a potentially dangerous situation (even in low security), and be locked away from society because of a series of tweets that heavily jumped the gun and stated funding as "secured" when it wasn't?
Being barred from serving as Chairman for three years and being forced to step down in addition to a $20m fine doesn't seem to satisfy some people's bloodlust, I have my doubts that being forced to step down as Tesla CEO would.
Why wouldn't being banned from serving as CEO or Chairman of any publicly traded company for some certain amount of time be enough? Why wouldn't increasing the fine be enough? Say it were $40m, $80m, $100m.
You can punish someone without throwing them into a box. I don't see how that benefits Musk or society in any way. If he's unlikely to do anything like this again, he had power taken away from him, and investors recooped losses, what possible gain is there?
