Elon Musk, the billionaire behind Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Company, and other ventures, has gotten himself into a bit of trouble in recent years over some of his tweets. This seems to be particularly true of a few startling ones that seem to show up late in the evening. One of the more troublesome ones was a tweet suggesting he was going to take Tesla private and already had the funding secured to do so. It drove a sudden spike in the company’s stock and accusations that he was fiddling with Wall Street in unacceptable ways. That matter is still causing concerns with the SEC and now Musk has been forced to allow the company’s lawyers to review any public statements (including on Twitter) regarding the company’s finances before sending them out. (Reuters)

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk has reached a deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a dispute over Musk’s use of Twitter, Musk and the SEC said in a court filing on Friday. The agreement requires Musk to get prior approval from Tesla’s legal counsel for public statements, including tweets, about the company’s finances, projected performance and other topics.

If it is approved by a judge, the deal means Musk no longer faces the prospect of being held in contempt for violating an earlier settlement with the agency.

This won’t be a done deal unless the judge in the case gives it a thumbs up, but it could keep Musk out of court for a while. The real question here is whether or not Elon will be able to restrain himself and live up to his end of the bargain.

Elon Musk’s Twitter account is one of my personal favorites and his followers number in the millions. But I don’t just like it for all of the latest SpaceX rocket news. He can be quite entertaining, particularly in the evenings. Some have speculated that this might be because he jumps on Twitter after imbibing a few adult beverages or smoking some wacky tobacky, but I certainly wouldn’t know if that’s the case.

No matter the cause, it seems as if late evenings are when he comes up with some of his best (?) ideas. The prime example is when he was trying to sell hats to raise money for his Boring Company’s latest projects and announced out of nowhere that if people bought enough of them he would sell flamethrowers. If it weren’t for that late-night brainstorm, I wouldn’t have my very own flamethrower (sorry… “Not A Flamethrower“) hanging in my den right now.

The guy has certainly earned a chance to put this behind him in my opinion. And who knows? With a bit of discipline and somebody to keep an eye on his phone he just might make this all go away. We’ll close with a walk down memory lane and a very brief video of the Not A Flamethrower in action.