Elon Musk says SEC is out to ‘muzzle and harass’ him and Tesla

The SEC alleged the tweets were false, and while Musk and Tesla didn’t admit wrongdoing in the accord, the agency set up a “fair fund,” with $US20 million each from Musk and Tesla, to repay investors Musk’s statements hurt.

In the letter, Spiro asked Nathan for a hearing “to address why the SEC has failed to distribute these funds to shareholders but has chosen to spend its energy and resources investigating Mr Musk’s and Tesla’s compliance with the consent decree by issuing subpoenas unilaterally, without court approval.”

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“Despite the SEC’s inattention and dereliction when it comes to paying Tesla’s shareholders, it has been more than energetic in going after Mr Musk and Tesla, largely to police Mr Musk’s public pronouncements via Twitter,” he said.

The settlements haven’t resolved conflict between the SEC and Musk over his company-related tweets. In 2019, the agency asked Nathan to find that the billionaire violated them by tweeting about the company’s outlook for producing cars. Both sides agreed in April of that year to add provisions limiting the topics Musk can post about without first running them by a company lawyer.

Then, in November, the SEC subpoenaed Tesla for information about its governance processes and compliance with the 2018 settlements after Musk took a Twitter poll asking whether he should sell 10 per cent of his Tesla stake. The carmaker’s shares plunged 16 per cent in the following two trading days.

The cases are US Securities and Exchange Commission v Musk, 18-cv-08865; US Securities and Exchange Commission v Tesla, 18-cv-08947, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Bloomberg

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