SEC Chairman Gary Gensler participates in a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Board at the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C., July 28, 2023.
Kevin Deitch | ity pictures
The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a “settlement order” to Elon Musk, the tech billionaire, which he revealed in a letter. Social media sharing Thursday.
The post included a copy of a letter sent by Musk's lawyer, Quinn Emanuel partner Alex Spiro, to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler.
The letter said the federal agency pressured Musk to agree to a settlement that would include a fine within 48 hours, or “face indictment on numerous counts” in connection with “certain purchases, sales, and disclosures of Twitter stock.”
It was the Securities and Exchange Commission Investigation Whether Musk, or anyone else working for him, committed securities fraud in 2022 Tesla The CEO sold shares in his car company Tesla and backed a stake in Twitter, before purchasing the social network now known as X.
“Oh Gary, how could you do this to me?” Musk said in the post he shared on X late Thursday, alongside an emoji showing a face holding back tears and a copy of Spiro's message.
In another post on Thursday, Musk wrote that he “asked Grok to draw a picture of GaryGensler. I think this is very fun!” This post contained an AI-generated image depicting the SEC chair as a snail-like creature wearing a suit.
A person with direct knowledge of the investigation, who requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter, told CNBC that the SEC sent a settlement offer to Musk in recent days, but he was given more than 48 hours to respond. .
If the SEC can't reach a settlement agreement with Musk, charges won't necessarily follow as a next step, this person said. When the agency cannot reach a settlement agreement with defendants, it will sometimes issue what is called a Wells Notice before enforcement staff make recommendations to agency commissioners, who then decide whether to file charges.
Gensler, Musk and Spiro did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.
Musk's lawyer argued in his letter that the SEC had engaged in “more than six years of harassing Musk” through investigative activities. Including the reopening of the investigation into the billionaire's health technology venture Neuralink this week.
Spiro also wrote that he had been personally subpoenaed by SEC staff but had refused to comply. He accused the agency of an “improperly motivated campaign against Mr. Musk and individuals and companies associated with him,” and demanded to know whether the White House or the Securities and Exchange Commission had directed this action against his client.
In 2018, the SEC Charged Musk was charged with civil securities fraud after he tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and had “financing secured” to do so. No special deal ever materialized.
Musk and Tesla each paid $20 million in fines to the agency, and reached a revised settlement agreement that requires Musk to temporarily relinquish his role as chairman of Tesla's board of directors. Since then, Musk has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the SEC.
The leader of Tesla, SpaceX and X has also become a major Republican donor in recent years and helped return President-elect Donald Trump to the White House.
In July of this year, Trump vowed to fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. After Trump won the elections… Gensler announced He will resign from his position instead.
In separate Civil suit In connection with the Twitter deal, which was the focus of a recent SEC investigation, the Oklahoma Firefighters' Pension and Retirement System filed a lawsuit against Musk, accusing him of intentionally concealing his progressive investments in the social network and intent to buy the company.
Lawyers for the pension fund argued that Musk, by failing to clearly disclose his investments in Twitter and his intentions to buy Twitter, had influenced the decisions of other shareholders and put them at a disadvantage.
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