The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday it intends to seek sanctions against Elon Musk after he failed to appear for court-ordered testimony in the regulator's investigation into the company's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc.
In a court filing, the SEC said its motion for sanctions seeks an order to show why Musk should not be held in civil contempt for failing to inform the court that he would not be appearing until just three hours before his scheduled testimony on September 10.
Musk, whose companies include electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, was in Cape Canaveral, Florida, that day to oversee the launch of SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission.
Musk's lawyers called the sanctions “extreme” and unnecessary, and said his testimony had already been rescheduled for October 3rd.
An SEC spokesman declined to comment.
The SEC is investigating whether Musk violated federal securities laws when he bought shares in Twitter Inc. in 2022 and later renamed the company X.
The SEC sued Musk in October after he refused to appear for an investigative interview, and he claims the SEC was trying to “harass” him through the subpoena.
