On Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC filed a lawsuit against Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk. The tech billionaire has now responded that a comprehensive overhaul of these agencies is sorely needed.
What Happened: In the lawsuit, the SEC accused Musk of failing to comply with a subpoena related to his 2022 Twitter stock purchase. The commission alleged that his refusal to testify hinders the SEC’s investigation into possible violations of federal securities laws.
Now, in response to an X (formerly Twitter) user and Spaces host Mario Nawfal’s post on the platform, Musk said, “A comprehensive overhaul of these agencies is sorely needed, along with a commission to take punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”
In his post, Nawfal said, “Another witch-hunt has started,” adding, “The SEC, which has been investigating Elon’s 2022 purchase of Twitter shares, is now suing to force him to testify and comply with their subpoena. This is yet another attack on Elon by the ‘alphabet organizations’.”
He also highlighted a series of alleged attacks on Musk’s ventures by regulatory agencies, including controversies involving Tesla, X, and SpaceX.
When another X user asked Musk if this “overhaul” and “punitive action” would ever happen, the tech mogul said, “I estimate the probability at 100%.”
Why It’s Important: Musk acquired Twitter, now rebranded as X, for $44 billion in October 2022. On April 14, 2022, Musk said he wanted to buy all the shares of Twitter that he didn’t already own and offered to pay $54.20 for each share.
Before this, it became known that Musk had been slowly buying Twitter shares since January 2022, and by that time, he had already owned 9.2% of the company.
However, in July 2022, Musk changed his mind about buying Twitter. He said he didn’t want to do it anymore because he found too many spam and fake accounts on the platform. This decision led Twitter to take legal action. They sued him to ensure the $44 billion deal to buy Twitter still happened.
The lawsuit got attention for discussing things like poop emojis and Chuck Norris memes in the court case.
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