The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has denied allegations that the regulator is harassing electric carmaker Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, with an investigation over his Twitter posts.

The probe dates back to 2018, when Musk tweeted about his intention to make Tesla private. The tweet briefly pushed Tesla’s stock price up more than 13%, but soon erased those gains, with shares sinking 11% below the pre-tweet close within 10 days.

The SEC filed fraud charges against Musk, while also requesting Musk’s resignation as board chairman and further approval of Musk’s tweets relating to Tesla. A month later, Musk and Tesla agreed to pay $20 million each in civil fines to settle the case. The money was supposed to go to Tesla’s investors. However, they filed a separate lawsuit against Musk, accusing him of posting a fraudulent announcement with wrongful intent, with a trial set for late May this year. Musk has repeatedly denied the allegations, stating that his tweet on privatizing Tesla was “entirely truthful.”

On Thursday, Musk’s lawyers sent a letter to US District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan accusing the SEC of trying to “muzzle” the CEO with their “endless” investigation over his Twitter posts.

READ MORE: Tesla says it won’t pay a cent in tax despite record profits

“The SEC’s outsized efforts seem calculated to chill his exercise of First Amendment rights rather than to enforce generally applicable laws in an even-handed fashion,” the letter from attorney Alex Spiro stated, as cited by Reuters. The lawyer also questioned why the SEC still hasn’t distributed the combined $40 million in fines to Tesla shareholders, as was intended, although more than three years have passed after the settlement.
In a letter on Friday, however, Steven Buchholz from the SEC’s San Francisco Office stated that the regulator is not harassing Musk, but is merely doing what the court ordered it to do – to meet and confer before raising any compliance issues with the court.

“The Commission’s enforcement staff have, accordingly, sought to meet and confer with counsel for Tesla and Mr. Musk to address any concerns regarding Tesla and Mr. Musk’s compliance with the court’s amended judgments,” Buchholz wrote, also claiming that the regulator has followed court orders in distributing the settlement money and that the process is nearly finished.

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The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission warned on Friday about the associated risks the emerging metaverse technology could bring as the virtual space fever sweeps the world.

The watchdog said in a statement published on its website that some companies were engaging in illegal fund-raising, fraud, and virtual real estate speculation.

“Beware of being duped, and if you find clues of suspected illegal crimes, please actively report this to the relevant local departments,” it said.

The official warning highlighted four different ways in which fraudsters were illicitly making profits using the metaverse. The first and most common form of the scam includes projects promising high-tech integration, such as AI and virtual reality support. These projects often lure investors by promising high returns, then the fraudsters get away with the investor funds.

The second most common form of metaverse scams is blockchain play-to-earn (P2E) projects, where scammers promise high profits for investing in the native gaming token and often run away with the funds once they reach a set goal. Another scheme such projects use includes hyping up the metaverse real-estate to induce panic buying among users, the regulator said.

In China, the total addressable market for the metaverse could be worth around $8 trillion, according to Morgan Stanley.

Chinese tech giants including Tencent, Huawei, and Alibaba have all jumped in on the metaverse trend to expand their investment and influence. Despite a blanket ban on the use and mining of cryptocurrencies in the country, the Chinese authorities have shown more relaxation towards nonfungible token (NFT) projects and the metaverse. However, experts say China’s metaverse could look very different to the rest of the world due to the government’s strict rules on the technology sector and Beijing’s crypto crackdown.

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After the massive influx of US liquefied natural gas to make up for lower pipeline supplies from Russia amid high demand, Europe is running out of processing capacity for the gas, Reuters has reported.

Europe turned into the biggest market for US liquefied natural gas over the past three months as concern about the geopolitical tensions around Ukraine prompted the EU to seek alternatives for Russian gas in case Moscow turned the taps off, even though Moscow has repeatedly said that it has no such plans.

Because of the increase in LNG shipments to Europe, the United States also overtook Qatar to become the world’s largest exporter of the commodity earlier this year. In January, Europe took in over 16 billion cubic meters of American liquefied natural gas, and this month’s shipments are also expected to remain elevated, with more than 6 billion cubic meters shipped since the start of February.

READ MORE: Europe’s gas demand set to decline in favor of coal – IEA

Right now, an estimated two-thirds of US LNG cargoes are slated to be delivered to European destinations. Storage, however, is filling up, which means that soon, LNG shipments from the United States might start to decline.

“A few cargoes could be squeezed into some other countries, but not significant supply,” Rystad Energy senior analyst Kaushal Ramesh told Reuters. This would require additional logistics, which, Ramesh said, would “burn a hole through buyers’ pockets, again.”

The European Union has a limited capacity of LNG import terminals where the superchilled gas is regasified before it is sent along pipelines to its final destinations. Spain and France have the biggest import capacity in the EU, with the UK coming in second in Europe as a whole with 50 billion cubic meters in annual nameplate LNG import capacity. Germany, on the other hand, the biggest gas market in Europe, has zero LNG import terminals.

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Tesla will not pay any US federal tax for 2021 despite record net income for the year. The company claims all its income came from foreign markets and reported losses in the US.

Last year was by far the most profitable for Tesla as the company recorded net income of $5.5 billion, and adjusted income of $7.6 billion.

In its latest annual financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, submitted earlier this month, Tesla said that the company’s US operations recorded a loss of $130 million in 2021 and that all of its pre-tax net income stemmed from overseas operations.

One explanation could be that Tesla structures its global operations so that income is reported from overseas subsidiaries often registered in tax havens like Bermuda, the Caymans or Luxembourg, while US operations report little or no taxable income.

“It’s very common. It’s almost malpractice not to do that. That defies common sense, but it does not defy the US tax code,” Martin Sullivan, chief economist for Tax Analysts, told CNN.

READ MORE: Tesla sued after another fatal crash

Tesla didn’t disclose in the filing with the SEC which countries it reported the 2021 profits from.

“Tesla and other giant corporations have long used scams and loopholes to help them get out of paying taxes – that has to stop,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, a frequent critic of company CEO Elon Musk, said to CNN.

Another explanation is that Tesla has indeed been losing money in the US, according to Gordon Johnson, CEO of the equity research firm GLJ Research and a Tesla critic. He pointed out that the company was losing money overall for years until it opened a Gigafactory in Shanghai in 2019 where product costs are lower than in the US.

Unlike his company, Elon Musk says he plans to pay more tax than anyone ever has in the US. His tax bill for last year is expected to be about $11 billion.

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A tiny studio apartment in East London, just seven square meters in size, will be auctioned off next week with a starting price of £50,000 ($68,000). However, the lot is expected to fetch more, as it was bought for £103,500 ($141,000) four years ago.

The microflat consists of a studio room and a separate wet room, and is the smallest on the market in London, according to the seller.

It boasts a captain’s bed, storage space underneath, some cupboards, a microwave, and a foldout table for eating or working on, The Guardian reports.

Real estate experts say microflats are a growing phenomenon, fueled by soaring rent and sky-high property prices. Another studio of 7.4 square meters in Notting Hill, one of London’s most expensive boroughs, is on sale for £150,000 ($204,000).

When it was first advertised two years ago for £250,000 ($340,000), some Twitter users described the capital’s housing market as “absolutely horrific.”

London is the world’s tenth-most expensive city for home buyers, according to a 2020 housing affordability report.

The latest microflat sale reflects the “inflated nature of the housing market in London,” Julia Rugg from York University’s Centre for Housing Policy told The Guardian, adding that it would be a “worrying development” if such tiny apartments were considered a solution to housing affordability.

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A Florida family is suing Tesla over an alleged defect that caused a car crash that killed a driver and passenger last year.

According to the lawsuit filed by the driver’s family in a Florida state court last week, the 2021 Model 3 vehicle had a “defective and unreasonably dangerous suspension that may cause loss of control during ordinary and foreseeable driving conditions.”

The plaintiffs seek damages of more than $30,000 each from the automaker and the service manager.The document also claims that the driver, Nicholas G. Garcia, brought the car to a Tesla store amid growing concerns over problems with “controllability/steering, suspension, battery and electronic system, and an ability to open the doors” four days before the fatal accident.

The complainants accused a Tesla service manager of “negligently” inspecting the affected model.

The crash, which occurred in the city of Coral Gables, Florida on September 13, killed 20-year old driver Nicholas G. Garcia and his passenger Jazmin Alcala, 19.

Garcia and the front-seat passenger sustained injuries and “traumatic life ending burns,” according to a Coral Gables Police Department report.

According to the report by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident, the car was speeding before crashing into two trees and catching fire.

The police also reported that the car’s underbody struck the roadway after going over a “hump” in the center of an intersection. The driver lost control and drove off the roadway before the crash.

In October, Tesla recalled around 3,000 Model Y and Model 3 vehicles in the US over a suspension issue. The automaker had to recall 21,599 China-made Model Ys in December, saying a suspension link may fall out of the steering knuckle under extreme stress conditions.

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Once the world’s sixth largest firm with a valuation of over $1 trillion, Facebook’s parent company Meta finished Thursday’s trading with a value of $565 billion. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the social media giant has tumbled out of the world’s 10 largest companies by market value, hammered by its worst monthly stock decline ever.

The stock rout has placed Mark Zuckerberg’s company in 11th place behind Chinese Tencent Holdings. Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) holds the ninth spot. The list of the world’s most-valuable companies, ranked by market capitalization, includes Apple, Microsoft, Aramco, Alphabet, Amazon, Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, and Nvidia. 

Data shows that the value wiped out by the selloff in Meta’s shares exceeds the market caps of all but eight companies in the SP 500 Index. Meta’s share price is down about 40% year-to-date after the company reported two weeks ago that its social media platform Facebook lost about one million users from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2021. That’s the first such decline for the company in its 18-year history.

Meta’s stock plummeted 26.4% on February 3 after the company released its weaker-than-expected outlook. The $240 billion loss in market capitalization was the largest one-day loss in US corporate history. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal net worth is down more than $46 billion from the beginning of the year, he’s currently worth $78.8 billion.

Since then, Meta’s share price has extended losses, losing another 13% to date. The company has warned that the rest of the year is shaping up to be a choppy one as it deals with “macroeconomic challenges” and continues its long-term strategic shift “towards building the metaverse.”

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A former Credit Suisse banker, who had been previously accused of money laundering, has reportedly told a Swiss court that top management at the bank knew about murders and cocaine smuggling connected to a Bulgarian gang, but continued managing cash that is now at the center of a criminal trial.

The Zurich-based banking giant and one of its former employees are facing charges for failing to tackle money-laundering practices connected to drug trafficking by a Bulgarian criminal syndicate. The gang allegedly managed to launder millions of euros, with some of it delivered to the bank in suitcases stuffed with cash.

Credit Suisse has denied any wrongdoing and stood by its former bankers accused. The trial began last week and is scheduled to end in early March.

The case hinges on illegal relations established between Switzerland’s second-largest bank and former Bulgarian wrestler Evelin Banev and multiple associates, two of whom are also charged in the case. The Bulgarian cocaine trafficking gang allegedly employed Banev, who is accused of hauling millions in currency by car to Switzerland. The events reportedly unfolded between 2004 and 2008.

READ MORE: Credit Suisse faces criminal charges over money-laundering for cocaine cartel

In an email from June 2005 read out in court last week, the banker played down press reports linking the murder of one of Banev’s associates a month earlier with drug trafficking.

“After the homicide we have decided to continue the business relationships,” the banker wrote in the email. “The said (short and imprecise) article linking the murder to Spanish cocaine… has not been confirmed.”

Last week, Banev’s attorney said in Sofia that his client denied any involvement in laundering money from drug trafficking through Credit Suisse. Meanwhile, the former wrestler was convicted of drug trafficking in Italy in 2017 and money laundering in Bulgaria in 2018. Banev was detained in September in Ukraine after Bulgaria and Romania sought his arrest.

The banker accused of helping conceal the criminal origins of the money, totaling more than 146 million Swiss francs in transactions, appeared in Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona with her managers, who gave evidence. The banker’s identity cannot be reported under Swiss privacy rules.

Credit Suisse disputes the illegal origin of the money, according to a source close to the bank quoted by Reuters. The source also claims that Banev and his circle operated legitimate businesses in construction, leasing, and hotels.

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Charlie Munger, the longtime business partner of Warren Buffett, has ripped cryptocurrencies, likening them to a sexually transmitted disease. In a comment that went viral, the veteran investor also called for virtual currencies to be banned.

“I certainly didn’t invest in crypto. I’m proud of the fact I’ve avoided it. It’s like a venereal disease or something. I just regard it as beneath contempt,” Munger said at a shareholder’s QA session at the annual meeting for LA-based newspaper company, Daily Journal Corp, where he serves as chairman.

The 98-year-old billionaire investor added that he “admire[s] the Chinese for banning it.”

READ MORE: Buffett U-turns on ‘rat poison,’ pours in $1bn

The news, first reported by Bloomberg, comes months after Berkshire Hathaway bought $1 billion worth of stock in a digital bank that focuses on crypto. The SEC filing submitted earlier this week confirmed the holding’s crypto investments into Nubank, a digital bank based in Brazil.

Last December, Nubank raised $2.6 billion in its New York IPO, valuing the fintech firm at over $40 billion.

Munger and Buffett have been long-standing critics of cryptocurrencies. Buffett has previously derided Bitcoin for being an asset that “does not create anything,” calling it “rat poison” and saying that crypto is nothing more than a “delusion that attracts charlatans.”

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The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Thursday that it’s opening a formal investigation into 416,000 Tesla vehicles over reports of unexpected brake activation tied to its driver assistance system Autopilot.

The probe covers 2021-2022 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. The government agency says it has received 354 complaints from owners during the past nine months about “phantom braking.” 

According to the NHTSA, the vehicles under review have an advanced Autopilot system that allows them to brake and steer automatically within lanes.

“Complainants report that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, at random, and often repeatedly in a single drive cycle,” the watchdog said.

Owners have reportedly raised concerns with Tesla, which has dismissed the complaints, saying the braking is normal. One owner of a 2021 Tesla Model Y told the NHTSA that, while he was driving on a highway at 80 miles per hour in October, “the car braked hard and decelerated from 80mph to 69mph in less than a second. The braking was so violent, my head snapped forward and I almost lost control of the car.”

In August, the NHTSA launched a formal safety probe into Tesla’s Autopilot system in 765,000 US vehicles following a series of crashes involving the company’s models and emergency vehicles.

The watchdog is currently investigating several issues with the electric vehicle manufacturer, which has issued 10 recalls since October, including many for software issues and some under pressure from the agency.

Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, wrote on Twitter on Thursday: “Another day, another issue with Tesla. Good to see NHTSA being more active in reigning this company in.”

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