Billionaire Elon Musk filed a motion on Thursday seeking to dismiss a civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused him of waiting too long in 2022 to disclose a significant stake in social media platform Twitter, later renamed X.
The SEC, in a complaint filed in January in Washington, D.C., said Musk violated federal securities law by waiting 11 days beyond the required 10-day window to disclose his initial purchase of 5% of Twitter’s common shares. The agency sought a civil fine and forfeiture of profits it said resulted from the delayed disclosure.
SEC rules require investors to disclose within 10 calendar days when crossing a 5% ownership threshold. In Musk’s case, the deadline would have been 24 March, 2022.
According to the SEC, Musk instead purchased more than $500 million of Twitter shares at “artificially low prices” before finally revealing his stake on 4 April, 2022, by which time he held a 9.2% share.
Musk’s lawyers argued that he halted further purchases of Twitter shares and filed the disclosure one business day after his wealth manager consulted securities counsel.
“The SEC does not allege that Mr. Musk acted intentionally, deliberately, willfully, or even recklessly,” Musk’s legal team said.
“Rather, the SEC alleges that Mr. Musk late-filed a single beneficial ownership form three years ago, and fully corrected any alleged error immediately upon its discovery. There is no ongoing violation,” they added.
The lawsuit was filed on 14 January, six days before Republican President Donald Trump took office and appointed Musk as a special adviser on federal workforce and spending reductions.
Musk faces a court deadline to respond by Friday (29 August).
Musk’s lawyers also claimed SEC was unfairly targeting him, saying the action “reveals an agency targeting an individual for his protected criticism of government overreach.”
The SEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours.
Musk has previously clashed with the SEC, including a 2018 case over his tweets suggesting he might take Tesla private and had secured funding.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday strongly condemned Russia’s missile and drone strikes on Ukraine. Kyiv reported that the attacks ...
U.S. President Donald Trump announced $270 billion in deals signed between U.S. and Saudi companies at the Washington investment conference....
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has announced plans by Tehran to bring together Afghanistan's neighbouring states including Russia and China in a regiona...
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on Wednesday, with both leaders voicing support f...
Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturian’s official visit to Georgia is testimony to a rapidly strengthening partnership between the two neighbouring ...
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday strongly condemned Russia’s missile and drone strikes on Ukraine. Kyiv reported that the attacks killed at least 25 people and injured 73 others.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced $270 billion in deals signed between U.S. and Saudi companies at the Washington investment conference.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has announced plans by Tehran to bring together Afghanistan's neighbouring states including Russia and China in a regional meeting aimed at addressing ongoing tensions with Pakistan.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on Wednesday, with both leaders voicing support for reviving the Istanbul peace process and strengthening cooperation on defence, diplomacy and prisoner exchanges.
Thousands of users in the United States, some parts of Europe and South America on the X (formerly twitter) platform have reported being unable to access the site due to Cloudflare outage.
Emirates Airline is confident in Boeing’s plans for a larger 777X and has ruled out ordering Airbus’s A350-1000 at the Dubai Airshow.
Punjab’s modern political story begins in 1947. The end of British rule divided the region between India and Pakistan, leaving Sikh communities with a split homeland and unresolved questions about cultural and administrative protections.
Turkish Defence Minister Yaşar Güler stated on Monday that it would take at least two months to reach initial conclusions and analyse the black box of a Turkish cargo plane that crashed in Georgia last week, resulting in the deaths of 20 soldiers.
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday talked up "high-level exchanges" in a call with Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi, hinting at a potential meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japan's new premier, Sanae Takaichi.
Audi has unveiled the car that marks its first major step into Formula One. It presented the 2026 challenger at a launch event in Munich attended by drivers, team leaders and senior company executives.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has launched NASA’s twin ESCAPADE satellites to Mars on Sunday, marking the second flight of its New Glenn rocket, a mission seen as a crucial test of the company’s reusability ambitions and a fresh challenge to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
China has announced exemptions to its export controls on Nexperia chips intended for civilian use, the commerce ministry said on Sunday, a move aimed at easing supply shortages affecting carmakers and automotive suppliers.
Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Watson, who co-discovered the DNA double-helix structure, has died at 97, his former research lab confirmed.
As competition over artificial intelligence intensifies, U.S. tech leaders are warning that China’s rapid state-backed progress could soon outpace the West, raising concerns that America is losing its technological edge.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment