Last Friday, electric carmaker Tesla said it had recently “complied with a ‘voluntary request for documents’ from the Department of Justice”1 about their Model 3 production. FBI agents are currently looking into whether Tesla misled their investors about the production of the Model 3 sedan. (Note: The current investigation is totally different than the issue that arose- thanks to Musk’s tweets saying he was planning to take the company private- with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)
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While the company has had a string of delays and other issues in bringing the car to market, in a statement Tesla made it clear that “We have not received a subpoena, a request for testimony, or any other formal process, and there have been no additional document requests about this from the Department of Justice for months.” 2 (However, FBI agents have issued subpoenas to some former Tesla employees.)
This news comes just after the company posted a record quarterly profit, its third since going public in 2010.
At issue is that in the summer of 2017, Musk promised the company would be “churning out 5,000 cars per week”3 by the end of the year. But that didn’t happen (it finally happened- six months later than promised). And during that time not only did their stock take a couple hits but they faced a lot of questions from investors.
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In its statement on Friday, the company said that it had been “transparent about how difficult Model 3 production would be, openly explaining that we would only be able to go as fast as our least lucky or least successful supplier, and that we were entering production hell.”4They also reminded everyone that it should not be forgotten how they’ve achieved goals no one else thought possible.
