Gee, SEC, how did that get out?! 'Leaked' Tesla email claims big boost in Model 3 production

Small comfort to Oracle's Larry Ellison, who's $420m *weyyy* poorer after ill-timed punt

A "leaked" email from Tesla boss Elon Musk to all employees claims the company is now making 900 Model 3 vehicles a day – a whisker (well, 11 per cent) away from its 1,000-a-day target.

The note, which was widely shared on Reddit and other platforms, also claimed demand for the cars was at an all-time high.

"As of yesterday, we had over 50,000 net new orders for this quarter. Based on current trends, we have a good chance of exceeding the record 90,700 deliveries of Q4 last year and making this the highest deliveries/sales quarter in Tesla history!

"In order to achieve this, we need sustained output of 1,000 Model 3's per day. Almost all parts of the Model 3 production system have exceeded 1,000 units on multiple days (congratulations!!) and we've averaged about 900/day this week, so we're only about 10% away from 7,000/week."

The convenient leak came as Tesla shares were coming under pressure with news of cost-cutting, questions over demand, and continuing struggles to ramp up production. Stock prices jumped more than 1.5 per cent as the email appeared on investment message boards and was quickly confirmed by alleged Tesla staffers.

In other lovable billionaire news, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has lost almost half a billion dollars on a Tesla punt.

Ellison told the SEC that he bought three million shares in the company at the end of December, when it was trading at about $315. It's now about $195. CNBC estimated Ellison's loss as $420m – a favourite number of Musk's.

Manchild Musk was charged with securities fraud by the SEC for talking bollocks on Twitter, claiming he had secured funding to take the 'leccy car maker private. He hadn't.

As part of the settlement, he agreed to clear future Tesla-related tweets with the regulator before posting. ®