How about the possibility that the cost of lying is less than the capital gains that can be realized by lying about it? EM was only fined $20 million when he said he had secured funding to take the company private at $420/share [0]. The stock bounce from that "news" was in the billions.

As it stands, he can get a trillion dollar pay package if a something-trillion market cap target is hit.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/elon-musk-loses-...