Miami, United States, Feb 11 (EFE).- A judge in San Francisco ordered Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly Twitter, to testify in the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into his 2022 acquisition of the social network.
The SEC sued Musk in a Northern District of California court to compel him to testify on whether he may have violated federal securities law through statements and SEC filings about the US$44 billion acquisition of Twitter (which he later renamed X).
Regulators asked Musk for information about the delayed disclosure of his Twitter stake, which he reported a week late.
He testified twice but failed to comply with a third subpoena on Sept. 15, 2023, saying that a third interview constituted “harassment” by the government.
The court now gave Musk and the SEC a week to agree on a date and place for the interview.
The feud between Musk and the SEC dates back to a 2018 tweet in which Musk said he planned to take Tesla, his electric-vehicle-company, private and had secured funding for doing so.
Regulators claimed the tweet was a violation of a securities law that prohibits public companies from announcing plans to buy or sell securities if executives have no intention of completing it, don’t have the means to complete it, or are trying to manipulate the stock price.
The SEC fined Musk US$20 million for misleading investors and forced him to step down as chairman and to agree to have a Tesla lawyer review his tweets about the company, but later Musk petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the agreement, saying it violated his right to free speech. EFE
ims/ics
