Fisker Inc. has received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission, indicating the bankrupt Southern California electric vehicle maker could be under investigation by Wall Street’s top cop, according to a court filing.

SEC subpoenas, which typically seek either records or testimony, are confidential, but a mention of the agency’s demand for information was included in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing this week in Delaware, where the troubled automaker filed for Chapter 11 protection on June 18 under a heavy debt load. The subpoena was included in a list of ongoing legal proceedings against Fisker; the filing did not provide any details about why the agency issued the subpoena.

As the company’s stock price has plummeted, shareholders have experienced large stock losses. Fisker is a defendant in a pending shareholder class-action lawsuit and five shareholder derivative complaints regarding a sharp drop in its stock price last fall. Derivative suits are filed by shareholders on behalf of the company and typically accuse officers or directors of wrongdoing.

Shaneeda Jaffer, a white-collar defense attorney at Benesch in San Francisco, said that although it’s an “absolute possibility” that Fisker is the target of an investigation, the agency also issues subpoenas to parties that might be able to provide information about other probes.

“Or you could be a subject of an investigation where you haven’t necessarily been put in either of those buckets. Companies and individuals receive subpoenas from the SEC all the time,” she said.

If wrongdoing is found, SEC investigations can lead to civil allegations or referrals to the Department of Justice for potential criminal investigation and possible charges.

A spokesperson for the agency said it does not comment on whether it is conducting an investigation. Fisker also declined to comment.

Fisker, based in Manhattan Beach until it moved to Orange County earlier this year, was founded in 2016 by auto designer Henrik Fisker. It went public in 2020 amid a surge of investor interest in electric vehicles, raising about $1 billion in capital, and was valued at close to $8 billion a year later.

Fisker’s stock reached an all-time high of $31.96 in March 2021 before dropping below $10 the next year and falling off a cliff late last year to under $2 a share. It now trades for less than a penny.

Last year, it released its first model, an SUV called the Ocean that was intended to compete with Tesla’s Model Y. But it had trouble meeting production goals at its contract manufacturer in Austria and delivering the vehicles to customers. The car also was plagued by software glitches. The company was reportedly in talks this year with Nissan to build a pickup truck domestically but failed to reach an agreement.

The lawsuits similarly allege that Henrik Fisker, the company’s chairman and chief executive; his wife, Geeta Gupta-Fisker, the company’s co-founder and chief financial and operating officer; and others, including board members, violated their fiduciary duties and/or securities laws. The company declined comment.

The allegations generally stem from a series of events that began with a news release issued in August 2023 that stated Fisker would produce up to 23,000 Oceans that year. However, it disclosed in November that in the third quarter it had built only 4,725 of the vehicles, with 1,097 delivered to customers.

The company also announced in November that its third-quarter results would be delayed due to the departure of its chief accounting officer, whose replacement resigned within days. When it released the results, Fisker said it had to make “material adjustments” to its financials and had identified a “material weakness in internal controls.” The company’s share price fell that month by more than half, to less than $2.

James Lucas, 52, a Fisker shareholder who said he lost more than $100,000 investing in the company, said shareholders also are angry over a series of media appearances by Henrik Fisker during which he touted the company’s prospects, even as its fortunes declined.

“There were a lot of comments made by mostly Henrik Fisker that had these kind of broad visions about the number of vehicles that were going to be produced. Whether it was just a failure to execute, who knows,” said the L.A. County resident. “As an investor you take senior managers’ word on a lot of things.”

Lucas, who participates in a Telegram group of Fisker investors, said he has filed complaints with the SEC against Fisker citing multiple issues and believes other aggrieved investors also have done so.

In March 2023, before the company had released the Ocean, Fisker boasted on CNBC that the automaker would make money on the first cars it shipped because its vehicle was being built by its contract manufacturer. “I can just sit counting the cash,” he said during the interview, which included a projection that Fisker would sell 1 million cars in 2027.

One year later on March 1, Fisker told an interviewer on Bloomberg TV that the company would “conservatively” deliver 20,000 to 22,000 to a new dealer network it had decided to put together. “In fact, we have a few dealers telling us, are you sure you can deliver us enough cars because we think we can sell more cars than what you’re offering us right now,” he said.

That same day, he told Yahoo Finance that he was confident the share price would rise above $1 a share to avoid being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. “I feel very optimistic about our future,” he said. The shares were delisted the next month.

Fisker produced only somewhat more than 10,000 vehicles before it filed for bankruptcy.

With the stock now trading for less than a penny in bankruptcy, Henrik Fisker has suffered big losses too, with his stake in the company worth little to nothing. But he also sold about $20 million worth of stock in 2021 well before the steep decline.

The company said that Henrik Fisker was not speaking to the media.

Andrew Fiorella, a securities litigator in Cleveland also at Benesch, said it was highly unlikely Fisker shareholders would be able to recover their losses, given that secured debt holders and others with claims against the bankrupt company have priority over common shareholders.

“There’s almost certainly going to be nothing left at the end of the day,” he said.

Fisker is not the only California startup electric vehicle maker that has experienced troubles amid a sales slowdown that is at least partially attributable to a rise in interest rates that has made financing more costly.

Rivian in Irvine and Lucid in the Bay Area, which both went public in 2021, also have seen sharp price declines as the hype over EVs has faded. However, each company has deep-pocketed institutional investors, and both are still operating.

The company whose data breach potentially exposed every American’s Social Security number to identity thieves finally has acknowledged the data theft — and said hackers obtained even more sensitive information than previously reported.

National Public Data, a Florida-based company that collects personal information for background checks, posted a “Security Incident” notice on its site to report “potential leaks of certain data in April 2024 and summer 2024.” The company said the breach appeared to involve a third party “that was trying to hack into data in late December 2023.”

According to a class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the hacking group USDoD claimed in April to have stolen personal records of 2.9 billion people from National Public Data. Posting in a forum popular among hackers, the group offered to sell the data, which included records from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, for $3.5 million, a cybersecurity expert said in a post on X.

Last week, a purported member of USDoD identified only as Felice told the hacking forum that they were offering “the full NPD database,” according to a screenshot taken by BleepingComputer. The information consists of about 2.7 billion records, each of which includes a person’s full name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and phone number, along with alternate names and birth dates, Felice claimed.

None of the information was encrypted.

Such a release would be problematic enough. But according to National Public Data, the breach also included email addresses — a crucial piece for identity thieves and fraudsters.

Having a person’s email address makes it easier to target them with phishing attacks, which try to dupe people into revealing passwords to financial accounts or downloading malware that can extract sensitive personal information from your devices. In addition, because many people use their email address to log into online accounts, it could be used to try to hijack those accounts through password resets.

It’s not clear what, exactly, has been leaked on the dark web from the breach. In a very small sampling of scans using Google One, email addresses taken during the National Public Data breach did not appear. But a free tool from the cybersecurity company Pentester found that other personal data purportedly exposed by the breach, including Social Security numbers, were on the dark web.

National Public Data said on its website that it will notify individuals if there are “further significant developments” applicable to them. “We have also implemented additional security measures in efforts to prevent the reoccurrence of such a breach and to protect our systems,” it said.

Previously, in an email sent to people who’d sought information about their accounts, the company said that it had “purged the entire database, as a whole, of any and all entries, essentially opting everyone out.” As a result, it said, it has deleted any “non-public personal information” about people, although it added, “We may be required to retain certain records to comply with legal obligations.”

The company did not respond to a request for comment. Under a number of state laws, including California’s, companies must notify any individual whose personal information is reasonably believed to have been taken by an unauthorized person.

At this point, it appears that the only notice provided by National Public Data is the page on its website, which states, “We are notifying you so that you can take action which will assist to minimize or eliminate potential harm. We strongly advise you to take preventive measures to help prevent and detect any misuse of your information.”

The steps recommended by National Public Data include checking your financial accounts for unauthorized activity and placing a free fraud alert on your accounts at the three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Once you’ve placed a fraud alert on your account, the company advised, ask for a free credit report, then check it for accounts and inquiries that you don’t recognize. “These can be signs of identity theft.”

Security experts also advise putting a freeze on your credit files at the three major credit bureaus. You can do so for free, and it will prevent criminals from taking out loans, signing up for credit cards and opening financial accounts under your name. The catch is that you’ll need to remember to lift the freeze temporarily if you are obtaining or applying for something that requires a credit check.

In the meantime, security experts say, make sure all of your online accounts use two-factor authorization to make them harder to hijack.

It’s also important to look for signs that an email or text is not legitimate, given the spread of “imposter scams.” Using messages disguised to look like an urgent inquiry from your bank or service provider, these scams try to dupe you into giving up keys to your identity and, potentially, your savings. Any request for sensitive personal information is a giant red flag.

Aleksandr Valentij of cybersecurity company Surfshark suggested checking the sender’s email address carefully to see if it doesn’t precisely match the name of the organization they purportedly represent, and looking for typos or grammatical errors — two telltale signs of a scam. And if the message is from someone you’ve never interacted with before, Valentij said, avoid clicking on links, including an “unsubscribe” link or button, because bad actors will use them for malicious purposes.

“If you suspect that you’ve received a phishing email, don’t interact with it and report it to your email provider,” Valentij said. “If it’s someone pretending to be a legitimate organization, you should also report it to that organization. Once that’s done, delete the email and stay vigilant for similar emails in the future.”

Businesses both small and large are fleeing California in search of friendlier pastures.

From 2018 through 2021, 352 companies relocated their headquarters from California to other states. The rate of exit more than doubled from 2020 to 2021 and was highest in Los Angeles County, an analysis by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University found.

The wave of departures has continued in 2024: Last month Elon Musk announced he will move SpaceX from Hawthorne to Texas, and this month Chevron announced plans to move its headquarters to the Lone Star State as well.

It’s part of a larger pattern. Headquarters and manufacturing plants are closing down and relocating operations to cities in Texas, Nevada and Florida. The Farmer John Meatpacking plant, a fixture of the Los Angeles meat industry for nearly a century, ceased operations and left the city to continue business elsewhere last year.

While the exodus has been headlined by a few big names, I often hear that medium to small businesses are quitting the city quietly, unburdened by public disclosure requirements and individually too small to register in media reports.

The explanations are varied, but the ultimate reason is clear: Los Angeles is an increasingly difficult place to operate a business. Affordability issues including high taxes and escalating labor, utility and energy costs, in addition to burdensome liability and punitive regulations, top the daily challenges. California perpetually resides at the bottom of state rankings of business favorability.

These factors are compounded by the enticing pull of recruitment efforts by other cities, including the promise of governmental partnership — especially appealing to Golden State businesspeople who complain of treatment as diverse as apathy and outright animosity from local officials.

Tantalized by prospects of greater opportunity, profitability and incentives out of state, the rational business mind makes a compelling case to leave. It practically screams it.

So this may sound crazy: Despite the mounting challenges in Los Angeles, my family-owned business isn’t going anywhere.

We care deeply about cost savings, efficiency and growth opportunities, and we recognize profitability as imperative to survival. But like many other small businesses in Los Angeles, we measure success and derive value beyond just profit and loss.

I am the proud owner of a four-generation beef jerky company that has called Los Angeles home for nearly 100 years. It brings me immeasurable joy to work in the same brick building built by my great-grandfather, greet customers who knew my grandfather, and share an office with my father. You can’t put a price tag on legacy. This legacy of course extends to our employees, many of whom have dedicated more than 25 years to our business, or have gone on to achieve successful careers elsewhere and even start their own businesses.

Rather than chase cheaper labor, our company would rather invest in our employees through health benefits and professional development as well as cultivate a sense of family. Other states have tried to recruit our business to leave California, but among the reasons we have refused is that we don’t want to abandon these connections.

We also value our role as part of L.A.’s communities. This year we launched a program targeting causes that align with our mission — supporting youth, families and active lifestyles — through monetary and product donation, as well as volunteering our time and expertise.

That’s the difference between huge corporations and small businesses. The former each employs thousands of local residents and contributes robust tax revenue to the city at a scale we can’t match. But larger companies — whether publicly traded, backed by private equity or international holding firms, and sometimes led by celebrity billionaires — are moving targets. They will pursue shareholder value at all costs regardless of regional ties or other considerations.

Meanwhile, there are 4.1 million small businesses in California that generate 7.5 million jobs, representing 47% of private-sector jobs. More importantly, two out of three net new jobs come from a small business.

Although corporations are important to L.A.’s financial ecosystem and should continue to be recruited, small businesses should not be discounted. Just because my business and others have chosen to stay here doesn’t mean we should be taken for granted.

In good news, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported a 7.8% increase in new business applications in California from 2022 to 2023. Los Angeles County may lead the state in departures, but it also had the most business applications during that year — 160,925. The challenge is getting them to stay.

To that end, we are rallying our peers around a common goal of improving the business landscape. These efforts have coalesced in the Made in LA Coalition working to raise consumer awareness about products manufactured in Los Angeles.

Some of the key initiatives we’d like to see include financial incentives for local manufacturing that encourage job creation and advancement, protections against pernicious lawsuits by bad actors seeking personal gain rather than the public good, and a commitment by the local government officials to use their platform and reach to celebrate the businesses, and people behind the businesses, who are committed to the city.

That kind of investment will help make Los Angeles a place where both business and community can thrive long term.

Brian Bianchetti is the fourth-generation CEO of People’s Choice Beef Jerky.