When you attack Musk, Musk counterattacks. The Tesla founder’s lawyers wrote a letter in a New York court on February 17 to accuse the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US stock market policeman, of conducting a “ harassment campaign ” against him. At the heart of the dispute that has been going on since 2018, Elon Musk’s tweets.
SEC accused of undermining Elon Musk’s free speech
For Elon Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, “ The SEC appears to be targeting Mr. Musk and Tesla for a relentless investigation largely because Mr. Musk remains an outspoken critic of the government “. From the government and especially from the SEC, in July 2020 the figure of the American Tech already estimated in a tweet to be in the viewfinder of the regulator, “ SEC, three-letter acronym, middle word is Elon “.
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SEC, three letter acronym, middle word is Elon’s
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 2, 2020
According to the letter delivered to Alison Nathan, the SEC would seek to interfere with the freedom of expression of Elon Musk. The authority is also accused of not respecting an agreement reached with the founder of Tesla in 2018. Just a week ago, the automaker revealed that the SEC had issued a subpoena against it in November 2021, precisely for non-compliance with the 2018 agreement. The reaction was immediate.
The 2018 deal, at the center of the dispute, was born out of Twitter. The SEC has accused Elon Musk of false and misleading statements for shareholders through several tweets. According to the deal at the time, Elon Musk stepped down as chairman, while remaining the company’s chief executive, Musk and Tesla also paid $20 million each in fines. Today, the company and its founder accuse the SEC precisely of not having returned these 40 million dollars to the shareholders.
Should a return to sender be expected?
The most important point of the agreement, the most special too, remains that of the supervision of the public speech of Elon Musk, in particular on Twitter. The messages of this compulsive tweeter regarding Tesla are supposed to be supervised to avoid new litigation.
The SEC believes that the agreement has repeatedly been breached. This earned Musk the new November subpoena, but also, earlier, in 2019, a return to court for the same reason.
In 2019, the federal judge who had overseen the agreement had asked the two parties to agree. This judge, Alison Nathan, is again responsible for settling the bickering between Elon Musk and the SEC.
The Verge reports that she ordered the regulator to respond to Elon Musk’s letter by February 24. This answer could disappoint the founder of Tesla. The SEC has strong arguments, tweets, alleging a violation of the 2018 agreement and seeking sanctions.
Elon Musk’s since-deleted posting of a meme comparing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Hitler just before he sent the letter to Alison Nathan is unlikely to help convince her of his ability to master his tweets.