Elon Musk is being sued by securities regulators in connection along with his $44 billion deal for Twitter Inc., a brand new wrinkle for the billionaire entrepreneur’s takeover of the social-media firm final yr.
The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk in San Francisco federal courtroom Thursday to get him to testify within the company’s investigation into the deal, as Musk has failed to seem for testimony, the SEC stated in a submitting.
The subpoena is said to “an ongoing investigation” into potential violations of securities legal guidelines in reference to Musk’s purchases of Twitter inventory and his statements regarding the corporate, the SEC stated. Musk has since renamed the corporate X.
“The SEC has already taken Mr. Musk’s testimony multiple times in this misguided investigation,” Musk’s non-public lawyer Alex Spiro stated in emailed feedback to MarketWatch. “Enough is enough.”
The SEC “seeks Musk’s testimony to obtain information not already in the SEC’s possession that is relevant to its legitimate and lawful investigation,” the company stated.
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According to the submitting, Musk failed to seem for testimony regardless of having agreed to take action and after being served with a subpoena in May.
Musk additionally apparently raised no objections to the testimony till two days earlier than the mutually agreed September date, however then notified the SEC he wouldn’t present.
Musk “attempted to justify his refusal to comply with the subpoena by raising, for the first time, several spurious objections,” the company stated.
That included objecting to San Francisco “as an appropriate testimony location,” in accordance with the swimsuit.
SEC workers “attempted to negotiate in good faith with Musk to find an alternative date and location for his testimony,” together with providing to take testimony in Texas, and the company proposed “multiple dates” in October and November.
“These good-faith efforts were met with Musk’s blanket refusal to appear for testimony,” the lawsuit stated.
Musk has not appeared for testimony on this investigation since July 2022, when he testified in two separate half-day periods, the SEC stated.
“Since that time, the SEC has received thousands of new documents from various parties,” together with “hundreds of documents” by Musk and never had the chance to query Musk relating to, amongst different issues, the knowledge contained in these paperwork,” the company stated.
Source web site: www.marketwatch.com
