Judge refuses to break Elon Musk’s deal with SEC


Elon Musk may soon have excitementhowever, its own use of the platform, a 2018 agreement signed with securities regulators.

A federal judge in New York has denied Mr Musk’s request to end the deal, which requires him to have a corporate attorney moderate his social media posts if the statements contain important information about electric car company Tesla.

Mr. Musk alleged that the agreement to settle charges of securities breaches violated his freedom of speech and that the Securities and Exchange Commission had used the agreement as a pretext to launch an “endless, unlimited” investigation into his statements. He claimed he only accepted the deal at first because the lawsuit would put too much financial pressure on Tesla.

“None of the arguments are valid,” said Judge Lewis J. Liman, of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, in a ruling released Wednesday that dismissed Mr. Musk’s allegations.

Judge Liman wrote that Mr Musk’s assertion that he had accepted the SEC’s terms due to the financial burden was “not entirely convincing”. “In 2018, he was already a multibillionaire and one of the richest individuals in the world,” said Judge Mr. Musk.

Alex Spiro, the attorney representing Mr. Musk at the firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, suggested an appeal was likely.

“Nothing will ever change the truth, which is that Elon Musk is considering buying Tesla privately and may have – half a decade later all that’s left is litigation that will continue to make that fact clearer and clearer,” said Mr. Spiro. . The statement read, “Continue to follow.” He declined to comment further.

The decision comes two days after Twitter’s board agreed to sell the company to Mr. Musk for $44 billion – the transaction still needs to be approved by shareholders. He had previously criticized the social network. censor freedom of expression and on Twitter, which has sought to curb misinformation, hate speech and other problematic expressions on its platform in recent years, he said he thinks people should be allowed to speak up more freely.

Tesla shareholders, who could not vote on the Twitter purchase, do not appear to support Mr Musk’s proposed purchase. Tesla stock price It has dropped 17 percent since the beginning of April. The drop reflects investor concern that Mr. Musk is using Tesla shares as collateral for bank loans, and the risk that a Twitter audit will distract him from the car business.

The court ruling marks the final round in Mr. Musk’s long-running battle with the SEC, an institution he has often ridiculed. Wednesday’s dispute has its roots in a post that Mr. Musk shared on Twitter in 2018. “Secured” enough money to make Tesla private. Later it turned out that he had only preliminary talks with investors. The SEC sued him for fraud.

As part of the deal to settle this lawsuit, Mr. Musk has agreed to clean up his social media posts with corporate lawyers. Notorious for his public statements, Mr Musk openly resented the restriction and was accused of violating it several times.

Mr. Musk “can’t just walk out of the settlement lamenting that he felt like he had to accept it at the time, but now – when the specter of the case becomes a distant memory and his company is, by his estimation, all but invincible – I wish it hadn’t happened,” Judge Port wrote.



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