Last Wednesday, Tesla CEO and chairman Elon Musk rejected a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over claims he lied on Twitter about having “secured” funding to take the automaker private at $420 a share. Under the settlement, Musk and Tesla would’ve paid fines of tens of millions of dollars, Tesla would’ve added a couple of independent board members, Musk wouldn’t have had to admit guilt, and he would’ve lost his chairmanship for two years.

Three days later, Musk agreed to a settlement on mostly the same terms, only he’ll have to step down as chair for three years.

In between those 72 hours, the SEC filed a thoroughly detailed lawsuit against Musk showing that funding for a takeover offer was in no way secured. Musk “had never discussed a going-private transaction at $420 per share with any potential funding source, had done nothing to investigate whether it would be possible for all current investors to remain with Tesla as a private company via a ‘special purpose fund,’ and had not confirmed support of Tesla’s investors for a potential going-private transaction,” according to the suit.

The SEC determined that Musk made materially false statements, leading to significant run-ups in the stock price, which subsequently crashed when Musk backtracked. This is securities fraud, and the lawsuit sought a heavy penalty, prohibiting Musk from acting as a director or officer of any public company, permanently. But days later, the SEC reverted to nearly the same settlement Musk had turned down, with a slap-on-the-wrist fine, a little adult supervision from the board, and prescribed monitoring of his tweets (seriously).

If you have a CEO this dead to rights on securities fraud, why let him continue as CEO? According to the SEC, Musk was indispensable. In a statement, SEC Chair Jay Clayton said “holding individuals accountable is important and an effective means of deterrence,” but that he must take the interests of investors into account, and “the skills and support of certain individuals may be important to the future success of a company.”