Question

Elon Musk has tweeted himself into trouble again. The SEC has asked a judge to find the Twitter-happy CEO of Tesla in contempt, claiming he violated a settlement reached last October. That settlement came after another Musk tweetstorm six months ago with his infamous funding secured claim, about a buyout deal for Tesla that turned out to be, well, far short of secure. Speculation now turns to whether the judge will find Musk in contempt and if so, what punishment he might face, with options ranging from a slap on the wrist to a bar from being a corporate officer. You have to ask why Musk feels it's necessary to court trouble just for the likes. He continued to taunt the SEC on Twitter after the complaint dropped and a perennial question, where is Tesla's board in all this? Regardless of what punishment the judge might hand down, Tesla appears now to be exposed to a chronic risk that emanates from its cofounder's very own thumbs. I'm Liam Denning for Bloomberg Opinion.

1. Is the conflict Elon Musk finds himself in with the SEC a dysfunctional conflict or a constructive conflict? If dysfunctional, how can Musk change the conflict to a constructive one?
2. Of the nine sources of conflict listed in the text, which seems to be the most appropriate in this example between Musk and SEC?
3. How is Musk escalating the conflict? What does he need to do to de-escalate the conflict?
4. Please answer all three questions above Thanks.

Answer 1

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla is a very popular figure in the social media. His words makes great impact on other peoples mind and life. A person of that much capacity must be very careful with his statement, especially when it can be viewed by the whole world.

As Tesla is a publicly traded corporation, hence it must abide by the rules and regulation imposed by the SEC. Elon Musk's statements on twitter like planning to take Tesla Private by $420 per share or make around 500K cars in 2019 are some of the statement that shook the buyer and seller of Tesla stocks to a great extent. Moreover it was unfair to give all the information through twitter in advance to some of the buyer or seller, giving them an advantage over the others; thus by violating the SEC norms.

The Conflict between Elon Musk and SEC is clearly an Authority relationship conflict as it can be clearly seen that even after an agreement between the two parties, the CEO did not like to be told by SEC on what to do and what not to and violated the agreement once again by re-tweeting offensive comments.

Clearly the conflict between both the parties is a dysfunctional conflict. It led the CEO to pay a huge fine of $20 million and also stepping down from the chairman position for three years. No one was benefitted from the conflict as the organization also lost one of it's most valuable employee, as a result his knowledge and skill.

With some efforts Musk can change the conflict from destructive to a constructive one. Some of the critical factors to follow are :

a) To Respect SEC's point of views as to why they are finding the tweets offensive and how it impacts the business as a whole.

b) Building good relationship with SEC by communicating and trying to understand them and give up all the egos and negative feelings.

c) By self management, discipline and control over self behaviour.

d) By being flexible and willing to bend.

e) By cooperating to work together towards a solution.