Musk's "funding secured" tweet was incredibly irresponsible. Subsequent elaborations by Musk himself showed he had what amounts to an initial expression of interest, at most.

His tweet seems like, at best, an impulsive, irresponsible action. At worst, it's an emotional attempt to fend off, possibly even directly harm his many critics and short-sellers.

This doesn't look good for him.

What are the possible repercussions of an SEC investigation? Are they significant?

Assuming for a second that this was just gamesmanship, it could be a great strategy.

Many short sellers get their shorts cancelled due to their stops and lose a lot of money. These short sellers (and others) will think twice about shorting Tesla again and may move on to easier targets.

It could be that all Mr. Musk needs to do is create a plausible story that he believed the funding was actually secured. If he can afford to defend the lawsuits in court and afford the SEC penalties, this could be a big long term win for the Tesla stock price.

Interesting. By the look of it Tesla will be the first company sued by the shorts and longs at the same time.

Disrupting the corporate law :P

The Dirty Money episode on Tesla is going to be lit.