The SEC has filed a lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk, accusing him of violating securities laws by not disclosing his effective shares in Twitter Inc., which allowed him to buy shares at “artificially low prices.” I woke you up.
CNBC report In a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the SEC alleges that Elon Musk failed to disclose his ownership of more than 5 percent of Twitter stock in 2022 within 10 calendar days of being required to do so. The lawsuit alleges that the company committed securities fraud. That threshold. The lack of transparency led to Musk underpaying at least $150 million for his Twitter stock, the SEC said.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022, then changed the company's name to X the following year. According to the SEC's complaint, Mr. Musk was more than 10 days late in reporting important ownership information, which would have influenced bids for the stock if investors had known of Mr. Musk's purchases and interest in the company. There is a possibility.
Musk's lawyer, Alex Spiro, said the SEC's actions were a “sham” and the result of a “multi-year campaign of harassment.” Mr. Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel, said Mr. Musk “did nothing wrong” and called the lawsuit a “single-count tic-tock indictment.”
The SEC's lawsuit comes just a week before President-elect Donald Trump's second term begins, and Musk is poised to lead the Trump administration's advisory group. In the final stages of his campaign, Trump announced that he would fire current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who received significant financial support from Musk. Following Trump's election victory, Gensler announced his resignation, and Trump plans to nominate Paul Atkins to be the next SEC chairman.
This isn't the first time Musk has faced legal trouble related to his Twitter acquisition. In a separate civil lawsuit filed in 2022, the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System alleges that Musk intentionally concealed his advanced investments in Twitter and his intentions to acquire the company, to the detriment of other shareholders. accused of giving.
The SEC's complaint seeks a jury trial and seeks to compel Musk to “pay unjust enrichment” as well as civil penalties. This latest development is part of an ongoing saga that began in April 2022, when Musk's ownership of Twitter Inc. became public knowledge and Musk was appointed to the company's board of directors before abandoning his plans. I briefly considered participating in the event.
Musk has had previous run-ins with the SEC, including in 2018 when he infamously announced on Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share. includes allegations of making “false and misleading” statements. The matter was eventually settled, with Musk and Tesla each paying a $20 million fine and Musk temporarily relinquishing his position as chairman of Tesla's board.
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Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering free speech and online censorship issues.
