{"id":56952,"date":"2026-05-04T21:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/56952\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T21:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T21:41:11","slug":"elon-musk-settles-sec-lawsuit-over-twitter-disclosures-fined-1-5m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/56952\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk settles SEC lawsuit over Twitter disclosures, fined $1.5M"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elon\u00a0Musk\u00a0settled the Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s civil lawsuit\u00a0accusing the world\u2019s richest person of waiting too long in 2022 to disclose his initial purchases of Twitter<\/a>, now known as X.<\/p>\n

A trust in\u00a0Musk\u2019s name will pay a $1.5 million civil penalty, without admitting wrongdoing.\u00a0Musk\u00a0won\u2019t have to give up any money he allegedly saved from the delay.<\/p>\n

The settlement was disclosed on Monday in the Washington, DC, federal court. \u00a0Lawyers for\u00a0Musk\u00a0did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\"ElonA trust in\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s name will pay a $1.5 million civil penalty, without admitting wrongdoing.\u00a0Musk\u00a0won\u2019t have to give up any money he allegedly saved from the delay. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

In its January 2025 lawsuit, the SEC said\u00a0Musk\u2019s 11-day delay in revealing his initial 5% Twitter stake in late March and early April 2022 let him buy more than $500 million of shares at artificially low prices.<\/p>\n

The SEC had argued that\u00a0Musk\u00a0should pay a civil fine and repay the $150 million he allegedly saved at the expense of unsuspecting investors.<\/p>\n

Musk\u00a0called the delay\u00a0inadvertent, and accused the SEC of violating his free speech rights by targeting him.<\/p>\n

He completed the $44 billion Twitter purchase in October 2022.<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s civil penalty is the largest in SEC history for the type of violation he was accused of, a person familiar with the settlement said.<\/p>\n

\"SmartphoneThe SEC had argued that\u00a0Musk\u00a0should pay a civil fine and repay the $150 million he allegedly saved at the expense of unsuspecting investors. He completed the $44 billion Twitter purchase in 2022. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The SEC\u2019s effort to recoup the $150 million may have been tough to prove in court, people familiar with the settlement said.<\/p>\n

Musk\u00a0has had a fraught relationship with the SEC, starting in September 2018 when the regulator charged him with securities fraud for saying on Twitter he had \u201csecured\u201d funding to potentially take his electric car company Tesla\u00a0private.<\/p>\n

He settled that case by paying a $20 million civil fine<\/a>, letting Tesla lawyers review some Twitter posts in advance, and giving up his role as Tesla\u2019s chairman.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s settlement came three months after US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan\u00a0rejected\u00a0Musk\u2019s bid to dismiss the case<\/a>. Both sides disclosed on March 17 they were in\u00a0talks\u00a0to settle.<\/p>\n

The SEC sued\u00a0Musk\u00a0six days before former President Joe Biden left the White House and was replaced by Donald Trump. Current SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has been refocusing the regulator\u2019s enforcement priorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon\u00a0Musk\u00a0settled the Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s civil lawsuit\u00a0accusing the world\u2019s richest person of waiting too long in 2022…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[474,202,1367,203,6194,2110,3581],"class_list":{"0":"post-56952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-elon-musk","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-elon-musk","10":"tag-lawsuits","11":"tag-musk","12":"tag-securities-and-exchange-commission","13":"tag-tech","14":"tag-x-formerly-twitter"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116518485150828889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}