Elon Musk and Tesla accuse Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Harassment
When you attack Musk, Musk counterattacks. Lawyers for the Tesla founder wrote a letter to a New York court on Feb. 17 accusing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US stock market policeman, of waging a “campaign of harassment” 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
“The SEC appears to be targeting Mr. Musk and Tesla for a relentless investigation in large part because Mr. Musk remains an outspoken critic of the government,” Elon Musk attorney Alex Spiro said. From the government and especially from the SEC, in July 2020 the figure of American Tech already estimated in a tweet to be in the sights of the regulator, “SEC, acronym of three letters, the word in the middle is that of Elon”.
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 agreement, 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.
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