The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that it is seeking monetary and legal sanctions to force billionaire Elon Musk to appear for a scheduled testimony. The entrepreneur allegedly failed to appear and provide testimony to the financial regulator about the $44 billion purchase of the Twitter platform in 2022.
More specifically, the SEC intends to file sanctions against Musk, ordering him to “Show Cause [for] why he should not be held in civil contempt” for allegedly violating the original terms of the agreement stipulated in the May 2024 order, which established the Sept. 19 date for the testimony.
The SEC also seeks monetary relief to recoup travel costs lost by Musk’s cancellation of the meetings and “all other relief” the court may grant the SEC.
According to court documents, the meeting was originally slated for Sept. 19 and representatives for Musk purportedly sought to have the date rescheduled several times.
Source: Court Listener.
The SEC accused Musk of violating the terms of the agreement by failing to obtain “written consent of the SEC or order of the Court” to modify his meeting with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Related:
Elon Musk starts to comply with Brazilian court orders, suspends accounts on X
Musk’s attorneys respond
Attorneys for Musk have characterized the move as “drastic” and were critical of the government regulator.
Musk’s legal counsel stressed that the Securities and Exchange Commission already accepted a request to reschedule the meeting for Oct. 3 in Los Angeles, California, and argued that the court’s intervention was unnecessary. In response to the SEC’s proposed sanctions, Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro wrote:
The letter explained that the only reason Musk missed the previous meetings was due to an emergency and reassured the court that he would appear for the October meeting.
Musk faces international regulatory scrutiny
In August, the Irish Data Protection Commission, a watchdog group from the European Union, filed a lawsuit against the X social media platform — accusing the platform of
AI data violations
and demanded that X stop collecting the data of European users.
In a Sept. 2 ruling, the Brazilian Supreme Court
upheld the X ban
originally ordered by Judge Alexandre De Moraes in a unanimous vote — dashing hopes that Musk would be able to overturn the order in the courts.
More recently, Dawn Butler — a member of the United Kingdom’s parliament and Labour Party — floated the idea of summoning
Musk to testify before parliament
about the X social media platform’s content moderation policies.
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