Meet Elon Tusk: Tesla Chief Changes Twitter Display Name

Feb 27 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk changed his Twitter display name to “Elon Tusk” and promised news from his electric carmaker later this week in another late-night flurry of tweets between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

In a series of tweets to his 25 million followers following charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week, Musk accused the regulator of failing to read Tesla’s annual reports and said its oversight was “broken.”

Overnight, he changed his display (https://twitter.com/elonmusk) name and added an elephant tag (which has since been removed –MT).

Shares of the company were up nearly 5 percent at $312.15 in afternoon trading on Wednesday, after Musk said Tesla would have “news” at 2 p.m. California time on Thursday.

California

— Elon Tusk (@elonmusk) February 27, 2019

The company, which is deep in debt as it ramps up production of its popular Model 3 sedan, is due to repay a $920 million convertible bond a day later.

Convertible issues give bondholders the right to trade their debt for equity after shares rise over a certain price. Tesla shares are currently about $48 below the $359.87 conversion price.

Tesla had $3.7 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of December, according to the company’s annual filing.

Musk had promised last year to have his public statements vetted by the company’s board, as part of a settlement with the SEC that headed off demands for him to resign as Tesla CEO.

Tesla did not immediately respond to request for comment.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee and Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Kate Duguid in New York; Editing by Patrick Graham, Bernard Orr)

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