On November 13, 2024, Musk listened to US President-elect Trump’s speech at the House Republican Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Alison Robert | Getty Images
SEC has issued a “settlement demand” to tech billionaire Elon Musk social media posts Thursday.
The post included a copy of a letter from Musk’s attorney, Quinn Emanuel partner Alex Spiro, to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
The letter said federal agencies have pressured Musk to agree to a settlement, including a fine, within 48 hours or face “multiple charges” related to “certain purchases, sales and disclosures of Twitter stock.”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been investigating whether Musk or anyone who worked with him committed securities fraud in 2022, when the Tesla executive sold stock in his car company Tesla ahead of a leveraged buyout of the social network And increased its stake in Twitter.
“Oh Gary, how could you do this to me?” Musk said in a post shared late Thursday, along with an emoji of someone holding back tears and a copy of Spiro’s letter.
In another post on Thursday, Musk wrote that he “asked @Grok to draw a picture of @GaryGensler. I thought it was super flattering!” The post included an AI-generated image depicting the SEC chairman Into a snail-like creature in a suit.
A person directly familiar with the investigation told CNBC that the SEC did send Musk a settlement offer in recent days, but he was given more than 48 hours to respond. .
If the SEC is unable to reach a settlement with Musk, charges may not necessarily be the next step, this person said. When the agency is unable to reach a settlement agreement with a defendant, it sometimes issues what is known as a “Wells Notice” before law enforcement officials make a recommendation to the agency commissioner, who then decides whether to file charges.
Gensler, Musk and Spiro did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Musk’s lawyers argued in the letter that the SEC had “harassed Musk for more than six years” through its investigations. That includes this week’s reopening of an investigation into billionaire health tech company Neuralink.
Spiro also wrote that he was personally subpoenaed by SEC staff but refused to comply. He accused the agency of “taking improperly motivated actions against Mr. Musk and individuals and companies associated with him” and demanded to know whether the White House or the Securities and Exchange Commission took such action against his client.
In 2018, the SEC charged Musk with civil securities fraud after he tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share with “funding secured.” No going-private deal materialized.
Musk and Tesla each paid a $20 million fine to the agency and reached a revised settlement that required Musk to temporarily relinquish his position as chairman of Tesla’s board of directors. Since then, Musk has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the SEC.
The leader of Tesla, SpaceX and X has also become a huge donor to the Republican Party in recent years and helped return President-elect Trump to the White House.
In July this year, Trump vowed to fire the SEC chairman. After Trump won the election, Gensler announced He will resign.
in separate civil litigation The Twitter deal was the focus of a recent SEC investigation, with the Oklahoma Firemen’s Pension and Retirement System suing Musk, accusing him of intentionally concealing an incremental investment in the social network and intending to acquire the company.
Lawyers for the pension fund argued that Musk’s failure to clearly disclose his investment and acquisition intentions for Twitter affected the decisions of other shareholders and put them at a disadvantage.
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