Tesla CEO Elon Musk has asked a federal judge to put an end to the settlement he came to with the Securities and Exchange Commission he agreed to back in 2018 over a few of his Twitter posts about the company, claiming that the current requirements are entirely “unworkable,” as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
This legal motion from Musk was officially filed in a Manhattan federal court and he put forth the argument that the requirement that all of his Twitter posts must go through approval has led to “round after round of demands for voluminous, costly document productions, with no signs of abatement.”
“The settlement, which required Musk to step down as the chair of Tesla, pay a $20 million fine and get pre-approval for all of his tweets about the company, has generated friction between the billionaire and federal regulators,” as reported by Axios.
“After Musk said on Twitter in 2018 that he wanted to take Tesla private, the SEC — which is charged with regulating public markets — reached a settlement with the billionaire entrepreneur in order to limit his social media use related to Tesla. However, the SEC has not distributed the $40 million in collected fines to shareholders and continues to subpoena Tesla regarding Musk’s social media use, according to a filing earlier this week,” reported the Daily Wire.
The previous settlement has also caused the SEC to accuse Musk of being in violation of the agreement concerning tweets about Tesla ever since the initial settlement agreement.
Musk has also filed a separate motion previously in order a dispute a fraud lawsuit from back in 2018. “I never lied to shareholders. I would never lie to shareholders. I entered into the consent decree for the survival of Tesla, for the sake of its shareholders,” Musk stated in the motion.
The motion could be quite important, as Musk has been ever increasingly outspoken in regards to various world events over the past few weeks. As an example, Musk recently highlighted his support for the U.S. to increase their domestic oil and gas production.
His sentiments were echoed by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz as he stated his agreement with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s viral tweet that America needs to look into the increasing of its domestic oil and gas output “immediately.”
Cruz also jumped to social media this past Saturday to show his suport of Musk’s comments, stating, “Couldn’t agree more! Unleash American energy NOW!”
Couldn't agree more! Unleash American energy NOW! https://t.co/2VHclbkeSS
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 5, 2022
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