Tesla Reportedly Asked Its Law Firm To Fire An Attorney Who Formerly Worked At The SEC

The Elon Musk regulatory saga plays on…

The latest chapter in the story came this weekend when it was reported that a lawyer for Tesla once asked a law firm to fire one of its attorneys in order to keep doing business with Tesla.

The attorney that Tesla wanted fired was a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who interviewed Elon Musk as part of the SEC’s 2018 probe into Tesla, according to CNBC. 

The 2018 investigation infamously led to a settlement wherein Musk and Tesla had to pay a $20 million fine each and wherein Musk had to step down as Tesla’s chairman. 

The firm, Cooley LLP, did not fire the lawyer. 

As a result, Tesla has since moved to replace Cooley as counsel and SpaceX has also stopped working with the firm.

Meanwhile, Tesla turned around and hired David Misler, a former trial attorney for the SEC, as its managing counsel. 

The revelation comes just days after Musk was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2021. 

“The richest man in the world does not own a house and has recently been selling off his fortune,” Time crowed about Musk last month in their reasoning, talking about him “selling off his fortune” like he’s giving away his money instead of cashing out of mysteriously overpriced Tesla stock.

“He tosses satellites into orbit and harnesses the sun; he drives a car he created that uses no gas and barely needs a driver,” Time wrote.

Apparently, Time also didn’t catch any recent videos of Teslas on Autopilot. Nor do they seem to understand that Tesla – speaking of regulators – is also in the midst of a sprawling 750,000+ vehicle federal investigation into Autopilot by the NHTSA. 

But we digress…