[(Title)] Elon Musk’s U-turn on Tesla deal could intensify his legal, regulatory woes.

WASHINGTON – Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk's decision to abruptly abandon a plan to take his electric carmaker private will not resolve his mounting regulatory and legal woes, and may even make them worse, some securities lawyers said.

一些证券律师表示，特斯拉公司首席执行官埃隆·马斯克突然决定放弃将他的电动汽车制造商私有化的计划，这无法解决他日益严重的监管和法律困境，甚至可能使他们变得更糟。

Explaining his reversal in a late-night blog post on Friday, the billionaire CEO said that taking the company private  "would be even more time-consuming and distracting than initially anticipated,

这位亿万富翁首席执行官在周五的深夜博客文章中解释了他的逆转，他表示将公司私有化“将会比最初的预期更加费时和分散注意力”，并且“特斯拉的大多数现有股东都相信我们会更好的作为一家上市公司。”

"  and that  "most of Tesla's existing shareholders believe we are better off as a public company."

It was on Aug. 7 that Musk first surprised investors with his plan by tweeting that he had  "funding secured"  for a go-private deal, which would have had a value of $72 billion. In a separate tweet, he wrote:  "Investor support is confirmed."

正是在8月7日，马斯克在Twitter上发帖称，他已经“确保了融资”，交易本来价值为720亿美元。他在另一条推文中写道：“投资者支持是肯定的”。

Musk and Tesla are facing investor lawsuits and a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the truthfulness of the CEO'S Aug. 7 tweets, according to an Aug. 8 report by the Wall Street Journal.

根据《华尔街日报》8月8日发布的一份报告，马斯克和特斯拉正面临投资者诉讼，美国证券交易委员会(SEC)对首席执行官8月7日在推特上的真实性进行了调查。

The SEC declined to confirm that report to Reuters. A Tesla spokesman declined comment.

SEC拒绝向路透社证实该报告。特斯拉发言人拒绝对此置评。

"The SEC will continue its investigation until it's satisfied that it is on top of the facts,"  said Stephen Crimmins, an attorney with Murphy & McGonigle who spent 14 years at the SEC, where he prosecuted hundreds of securities cases.

Murphy&McGonigle律师史蒂芬·克里明斯(Stephen Crimins)表示：“SEC将继续调查，直到它确信其已经掌握了首要事实。”他在证券交易委员会工作了14年，他在SEC起诉了数百宗证券案件。

"What happened on Friday will be of interest to the SEC because it will allow them to probe whether Musk's pulling back from the go-private somehow indicates that he did not have a reasonable basis for his statement.

“周五发生的事情将引起美国证券交易委员会的兴趣，因为这将使他们能够探讨马斯克是否会以某种方式从私有化中退出来表明他没有合理的基础来发表他的陈述。他们会向他和所涉其他人提问。 说明其他人参与决定他为什么要改变方向。“

They will be asking questions of him and others involved in the decision as to why he reversed course."

Musk has stuck to his original statement that he believed a deal was possible, and one person familiar with the discussions told Reuters that Musk was serious about taking the carmaker private.

马斯克一直坚持其原来的说法，即他认为达成协议是可能的，一位知情人士告诉路透社说，马斯克非常重视将汽车制造商私有化。

But acting in good faith may not be enough to help Musk escape the regulator's gaze.

但诚意行动可能不足以帮助马斯克逃脱监管机构的注视。

U.S. securities law requires public company executives to have a  "reasonable basis"  on which to make representations to the investing public, and that would likely be the focus of an SEC probe, said three securities lawyers.

三位证券律师表示，美国证券法要求上市公司管理人员要有“合理依据”，据以向投资公众进行陈述，这可能是证交会调查的重点。

It remains unclear what Musk meant by  "funding secured."  In an Aug. 13 statement, Musk said that he left a July 31 meeting with the managing director of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund  "with no question that a deal … could be closed."

目前尚不清楚马斯克的“资金安全”是什么意思。 在8月13日的声明中，马斯克表示，他于7月31日与沙特阿拉伯主权财富基金的董事总经理会面，“毫无疑问，交易......可能会停止。”

The Saudi fund had earlier acquired a just-below 5 percent stake in Tesla on the open market. But the fund has made no comment on whether it had promised to back a much larger Tesla go-private deal.

此前，沙特基金在公开市场上收购了特斯拉略低于5%的股份，但该基金并未就是否承诺支持规模更大的特斯拉私人交易做出任何评论。

Musk said on Friday he believed there was plenty of potential funding to take the company private, but he did not provide any further details to bolster his  "funding secured"  assertion.

马斯克上周五表示，他认为，有很多潜在资金可用于收购该公司，但他没有提供任何进一步的细节，以支持“有保障的资金”的断言。

Teresa Goody, CEO of law firm Goody Counsel and a former SEC attorney, said Musk's statement on Friday appeared to undermine his Aug. 7 tweet that investor support was confirmed.

律师事务所Goody Counsel首席执行官，美国证券交易委员会前律师Teresa Goody表示，马斯克周五的声明似乎打破了他8月7日关于表明投资者的支持得到了证实的推文。

She also raised concerns about a second comment Musk made on Friday, where he said it had become apparent that compliance restrictions would prevent many of Tesla's institutional shareholders from holding private Tesla equity.

她还对马斯克上周五发表的第二篇评论表示关切，马斯克表示，遵守规定的限制显然会阻碍特斯拉的许多机构股东持有私人特斯拉股权。

Both statements are likely to raise further questions among SEC officials as to whether Musk had performed sufficient due diligence to have had a reasonable basis for his Aug. 7 tweets, she said.

她说，这两项声明很可能在SEC官员中引起进一步的问题，即马斯克是否履行了足够的应尽职责，以获得其8月7日在推特上的合理依据。

Another statement in the blog that could catch the eye of SEC officials is Musk's reference to his discussion with Tesla's board on Thursday, during which both parties decided not to pursue the deal, said M. Ridgway Barker,

Withersworldwide律师事务所的合伙人兼企业融资业务主席，里德盖伊·巴克(M.Ridgway Barker)表示，博文中另一项可能会引起SEC官员注意的声明，是马斯克提到了他周四与特斯拉董事会进行的讨论，在这次讨论中，双方决定不继续执行这项交易。

a partner and chair of the corporate finance practice at law firm Withersworldwide.

Such discussions are unlikely to be subject to legal privilege and the SEC could subpoena minutes of the meeting, he said.

他说：“这样的讨论不太可能受到法律保护，美国证券交易委员会可以传唤会议记录。如果董事会的讨论包括该交易无法融资，或者说这些交易过于昂贵，那么这将对马斯克的主张产生进一步的质疑。”

"If the board discussion included that the deal is not financeable, or prohibitively expensive, that is going to cast further doubt over Musk's claims,"  he said.