The SEC is suing Elon Musk for allegedly failing to properly disclose his Twitter holdings

The SEC is suing Elon Musk for allegedly failing to properly disclose his Twitter holdings


new York
CNN

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Elon Musk on Tuesday for failing to properly disclose his ownership of X, then known as Twitter, which allowed him to buy shares of the platform at “artificially low prices.”

Before completing his $44 million deal to buy Twitter in October 2022, Musk began purchasing a “significant number” of Twitter shares. As of March 2022, he owned more than 5% of the company’s common stock and was required to disclose this to the SEC within 10 calendar days. The filing alleged that Musk did not disclose this information.

Musk and his asset manager did not provide any information about the purchases because it could cause Twitter’s stock price to skyrocket, the lawsuit says.

By keeping these purchases low, Musk “underpaid Twitter investors by more than $150 million for his purchases of Twitter common stock during this period,” says the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington .

Although Musk was required to disclose his 5% stake by March 24, 2022, he bought nearly 3.5 million shares the next day, increasing his stake in the company to 7%, the lawsuit says. He also expressed interest in acquiring Twitter to a member of the company’s board.

According to the lawsuit, Musk joined Twitter’s board of directors and officially announced his investment in the company in early April 2022. When he disclosed his stake, he owned more than 9% of the company and “Twitter’s stock price increased more than 27%,” the lawsuit says.

“Musk paid significantly less for the shares of Twitter common stock he purchased between March 25, 2022 and April 1, 2022 than he would have had he had timely disclosed,” the lawsuit said, adding that during that period spent more than $500 million to acquire shares.

The SEC is investigating the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX over his acquisition of the social media platform. Last year he got into trouble with the commission because he failed to appear to testify during the investigation.

CNN has reached out to Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro for comment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *