The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked a federal judge to sanction Elon Musk if he continues to violate the court’s order to appear for a deposition in a probe of his 2022 Twitter acquisition.
The SEC has been investigating whether Musk or anyone else working with him committed securities fraud in 2022 as the Tesla CEO sold shares in his automaker and shored up a stake in Twitter, ahead of his leveraged buyout of the company now known as X.
In May, the court ordered Musk to appear for a deposition by the financial regulators regarding the Twitter deal.
“Musk has now failed to appear before the SEC twice: first in September 2023, in defiance of a lawful administrative subpoena, and last week, in defiance of a clear court order,” SEC attorney Robin Andrews said in the Friday filing.
Andrews asked the judge to consider sanctions should Musk delay further, according to the filing.
“The Court must make clear that Musk’s gamesmanship and delay tactics must cease,” Andrews wrote.
The filing also revealed, in a footnote, that the SEC intends to ask the court to hold Musk in “civil contempt” for canceling a deposition on Sept. 10, giving the agency only a few hours notice that he would not appear. Musk’s cancellation cost the SEC time and money after it sent personnel to Los Angeles to depose him and he didn’t appear for the investigative interview, the agency said.
Musk’s deposition in the probe has been rescheduled for a date in early October at an SEC office, the filing said.
“Without further action by the Court, nothing deters Musk” from “simply failing to show up for that date,” Andrews wrote.
Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel in New York, wrote in a response that “such drastic action would be inappropriate,” adding that the SEC and Musk had agreed rescheduling would be permissible in light of an emergency.
Additionally, Musk and his companies have “cooperated and are cooperating with the SEC in multiple other ongoing investigations,” Spiro wrote.
In a separate, civil lawsuit concerning the same Twitter deal, the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System has sued Musk in a federal court in New York accusing him of deliberately concealing his progressive investments in Twitter and intent to buy out the company.
The pension fund’s attorneys argue that Musk, by failing to clearly disclose his investments in and intentions to buy Twitter, had influenced other shareholders’ decisions and put them at a disadvantage.
Discovery from that case in New York yielded correspondence between an unnamed person at Morgan Stanley, and the executive who manages Musk’s money, Jared Birchall. In the messages, the Morgan Stanley contact wrote in February 2022 that Musk’s Twitter stock-buying strategy was closely held.
“No one knows what is going on and why but you and me,” the person at Morgan Stanley wrote. “Not compliance, not anyone.”
