Elon Musk didn't show up for testimony in a probe over his $44 billion Twitter takeover. Now the SEC wants sanctions [View all]
Source: CNN
The Securities and Exchange Commission intends to seek sanctions against Elon Musk over his failure to appear for testimony in an investigation related to his takeover of Twitter, now called X, the regulator said in a court filing Friday.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ordered Musk to testify as part of the SEC’s probe of the billionaire’s $44 billion acquisition. The agency is examining whether Musk followed the law when disclosing his purchases of Twitter stock and whether his statements in relation to the deal were misleading.
After some initial scheduling back-and-forth, the parties had agreed that Musk would testify on September 10, and SEC lawyers flew to Los Angeles to take Musk’s testimony, according to Friday’s court filing. But three hours before his testimony was set to begin, Musk’s lawyer told the SEC that his client, who also runs SpaceX, had to urgently travel to the East Coast for the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission and would be unable to attend the testimony or reschedule to the following day, the filing states.,,,,,
The SEC alleges that Musk violated a court order requiring that Musk “seek ‘written consent of the SEC or order of the Court’ to modify the date of his testimony,” which it says he did not do before failing to appear on September 10.
“Musk’s excuse itself smacks of gamesmanship,” the SEC said in the filing. “SpaceX had already announced that it was targeting a Tuesday morning launch two days earlier… As the company’s Chief Technical Officer, Musk surely was already aware by then that SpaceX was targeting the morning of his SEC testimony for the launch.”
It continued: “Despite this advance knowledge, Musk did not notify the SEC of his intent to attend the launch until three hours before his testimony was to begin, and after the SEC spent thousands of dollars to fly three attorneys to Los Angeles.”
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/tech/sec-sanctions-elon-musk-testimony-twitter-probe
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