Musk knocks SEC over settlement offer in probe

Tech mogul Elon Musk criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday over a settlement offer in the agency’s probe into his 2022 purchase of Twitter, now known as X.

In a letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler that Musk shared on X, his attorney Alex Spiro said the agency had given the billionaire 48 hours to accept a monetary payment or face charges on several counts.

"This demand follows a multi-year investigation and more than six years of harassment of Mr. Musk by the Commission and its Staff,” Spiro wrote in Thursday’s letter.

"This series of events makes clear that the Commission is not motivated to seek the truth but instead is engaged in an improperly motivated campaign against Mr. Musk and the individuals and companies associated with him,” he added. “We demand to know who directed these actions — whether it was you or the White House."

The SEC launched the probe in April 2022 into Musk’s initial purchase of Twitter stock and his various statements and SEC filings related to the social media company. He would ultimately buy Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022.

After sitting for two depositions with the agency, Musk refused to testify for a third time in 2023, kicking off a monthslong legal battle. The SEC sued the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, and a federal judge ultimately ordered him to testify.

Musk agreed in May to sit for another deposition with the agency but skipped his scheduled appearance in September. His lawyer told the SEC at the time that Musk had to “urgently travel” to Cape Canaveral, Fla. where SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn was set to take off the next day.

The Twitter probe is not Musk’s first brush with the SEC. He previously entered into a settlement agreement with the agency in 2018 over his social media posts about Tesla.

As part of the agreement, lawyers were required to approve some of Musk’s posts about Tesla. A federal judge rejected the billionaire’s challenge to the agreement last year, leading him to appeal to the Supreme Court. However, the high court declined to hear his case in April.

Spiro’s letter to the SEC chair on Thursday also noted that the agency has reopened its investigation into Musk’s brain chip company Neuralink.

“Oh Gary, how could you do this to me?” Musk wrote in a post on X, accompanying the letter.

Musk, who contributed at least $250 million to President-elect Trump’s campaign, has become a key figure in the incoming administration, reportedly sitting in on job interviews and calls with world leaders at Mar-a-Lago.

He is also preparing to take on a new role as head of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, alongside tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.