Clash with the US Securities and Exchange Commission: Musk wants to retweet without restrictions

Conflict with the US Securities and Exchange Commission
Musk wants to go back to tweets without restrictions

03/09/2022 00:51

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Tesla boss Elon Musk of misleading investors with messages on Twitter. Both parties agree that certain Tweets must be approved prior to publication. Musk now wants to end the deal.

Tesla boss Elon Musk wants to overturn a deal with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over his tweet. Musk petitioned federal court to reverse the 2018 settlement with the SEC. At the time, the parties agreed that Musk’s Twitter messages should be approved. Musk’s lawyers argue that this requirement is impractical. They accuse the SEC of producing extensive and costly documents as part of the agreement.

Musk also denied previous SEC allegations that he defrauded investors in 2018 when he tweeted that funds had been secured to take Tesla private. The Tesla CEO said he felt pressure to settle with the SEC at the time. “I’ve never lied to shareholders,” he said. “I would never lie to shareholders. I settled for the existence of Tesla to shareholders.” An SEC spokesman declined to comment.

Musk’s filing follows a new SEC investigation involving him and his brother, Kimbal Musk. It was launched last year after the Tesla boss made Twitter users vote on whether they should sell 10 percent of their shares. He wrote at the time that he wanted to respect the outcome of the vote. The day before the tweet, Kimbal Musk sold $108 million worth of Tesla stock.

In an earlier case, the SEC accused Musk of misleading investors by tweeting. This led to the unusual agreement that Tesla’s lawyers should pre-approval certain tweets and public statements by Musk. However, there was never any agreement on how it should be implemented. The SEC believes that some tweets from 2019 and 2020 were removed without permission. Lawyers for Tesla and Musk argued that not all of the tweets were included in the agreement, but only related to financial, manufacturing and management information.