Bhavish Aggarwal might run an electric company and an AI company like Elon Musk, and be outspoken on X like Musk, but seem to be more parallels developing between the two.
India’s market regulator SEBI has warned Bhavish Aggarwal over sharing Ola Electric’s business details on X before informing the exchanges. Titled “Administrative warning”, SEBI pulled up Aggarwal for posting on X about a four-fold expansion in Ola’s store network before the company had made a disclosure to the exchanges. In the US, Elon Musk had been famously pulled up by their market regulator for tweeting “funding secured” over a Tesla deal to take the company private at a share price of $420.
“This is with reference to your disclosure on the stock exchanges dated December 2, 2024 pursuant to the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirerments) Regulations, 2015 (LODR), wherein on regarding plans for a four-fold expansion of your company-owned store network by December 20, 2024 was disseminated,” SEBI’s notice to Ola Electric said. “It observed that whereas the aforesaid information was disseminated on the stock exchanges by you at 1:36 PM (BSE) and 1:41 PM (NSE) on December 2, 2024, it was announced beforehand on X (formerly Twitter) at 9:58 AM on December 2, 2024 by Mr. Bhavish Aggarwal, your promoter and chairman-cum-managing director,” it added.
“It is observed that the aforesaid information was not first disclosed to the stock exchanges and the disclosure was not made on the stock exchanges as soon as reasonably possible…you have failed to provide the aforesaid information to stock exchanges and all investors in a timely manner,” the notice said.
The notice was in response to Aggarwal posting on X about Ola’s plans to expand its store capacity. “Taking the Electric revolution to the next level this month. Going from 800 stores right now to 4000 stores this month itself. Goal to be as close to our customers as possible. All stores opening together on 20th Dec across India. Probably the biggest single day store opening ever!” he had said on X on 2nd December.
But this tweet has caught the ire of the market regulator, which requires companies to first disclose any material developments to their business to the stock exchanges, which are then disseminated by these exchanges to the public. A promoter sharing a business update on X could disadvantage investors who don’t use X, and give an unfair advantage to those who do. Interestingly, Musk had also been sued for a similar violation in regards to Tesla by the SEC. Both Musk and Aggarwal seem to use X as a means of directly reaching their audiences and influencing public opinion — but as their run-ins with regulators show, social media at times can end up being a double-edged sword.