SEC files complaint against Tesla's Elon Musk

DETROIT -- U.S. securities regulators have filed a complaint against Tesla CEO Elon Musk alleging he made false and misleading statements about plans to take the company private in August.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said in the complaint filed Thursday that Musk falsely claimed in an Aug. 7 statement on Twitter funding was secured to take the company private at $420 per share.

The complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan states Musk had not discussed or confirmed key deal terms including price with any funding source.

The commission is asking the court for an order to stop Musk from being "an officer or director" of any public company. The SEC also seeks an order enjoining Musk from making false and misleading statements along with repayment of any gains as well as civil penalties.

"Musk made his false and misleading public statements about taking Tesla private using his mobile phone in the middle of the active trading day," the SEC said in the complaint. "He did not discuss the content of the statements with anyone else prior to publishing them to his over 22 million Twitter followers and anyone else with access to the Internet."

The statements, the complaint said "were premised on a long series of baseless assumptions and were contrary to facts that Musk knew."

Shares of Tesla fell 11 percent in after-hours trading to $273.56, after falling 2 percent before the market closed Thursday.