SEC To Seek Sanctions Against Elon Musk in Twitter Probe

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Friday it intends to seek sanctions against Elon Musk in its ongoing Twitter probe. The SEC says Musk failed to appear for court-ordered testimony for their probe into his $44 billion takeover of X.

The SEC wrote in a court filing Friday that the sanctions motion would seek an order to show cause for why Musk should not be held in civil contempt. Musk waited until just three hours before the scheduled Sept. 10 testimony to advise he would not appear, according to the regulator.

The SEC has been investigating Musk’s purchase of Twitter for 11 months, looking to get the Tesla founder to testify. They are investigating potential violations of U.S. securities laws around the purchase, according to an SEC filing in October 2023. The SEC sued Musk that month to compel him to testify after he refused to attend a September interview. The billionaire has said the SEC is trying to “harass” him through unwarranted investigations. He has frequently accused the SEC of abusive enforcement since he agreed with the agency in 2018 to have an in-house lawyer pre-approve his social media posts about Tesla.

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While the billionaire finally agreed to show up and testify, Musk did not attend. Instead of attending the testimony, Elon Musk defied the SEC and went to Florida’s Cape Canaveral that day to oversee the launch of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission. Lawyers for Elon Musk called the SEC sanctions “drastic” and unnecessary. According to the lawyers, his testimony has already been rescheduled for October 3.

The SEC has yet to comment on the sanction attempt.