This isn’t a small problem they can pay a fine and ignore it. Legally it’s possible they might find some way to wriggle out of responsibility. But they’re still screwed. It’s not just the law they need to worry about they need to worry about. In this case, since Elon has a weird cult of personality with his investors he might be fine on that front. Usually when this kind of thing is revealed about a company the shareholders dump and run but that is not going to happen here I think. What is going to murder Tesla is loans.

A floundering company with a good rep can survive quite a while on loans. Many big finance companies give great interest rates to big companies they think they can do large-scale business with in the future. So a company that can convince people they’re on track for great profits can often get fantastic terms. I guarantee you that has stopped. No credible finance company will likely touch Tesla now. None of the numbers they give can be trusted. So Tesla’s ability to gain new loans has just evapourated. Since they are committing accounting fraud they are not selling as much as they claim and therefore almost certainly need new loans just to keep going.