Elon Musk’s lawyer asks court to end ‘Twitter sitter’ deal with SEC
The agreement requires the company’s securities counsel to review Musk’s Tesla-related tweets before sharing them if they contain material business information.
A jury in San Francisco federal court recently found that Musk and Tesla were not liable in a class-action securities fraud trial stemming from tweets made by Musk in 2018.
Following Elon Musk’s recent victory in a securities fraud trial, the Tesla CEO’s lawyer has once again asked an appeals court to throw out his 2018 deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which included Tesla-related company securities. Lawyer’s tweets need to be reviewed.
On February 3, a jury in San Francisco federal court found that Musk and Tesla were not liable for damages arising from tweets made by Musk in 2018. The centi-billionaire, who is also the CEO of SpaceX and Twitter, was sued by Tesla shareholders. In a series of tweets written in August 2018,
which said that “funding had been secured” to take the automaker private for $420 per share, and that “investor support” for such a deal had been “confirmed”. Trading in Tesla was halted following his tweet and its share price was volatile for weeks.
Musk had previously settled with the SEC over the tweets in 2018, and eventually entered into a revised settlement agreement that required a legal and regulatory compliance point person at Tesla (informally, a “Twitter sitter”) to attend any of Musk’s tweets. To pre-empt the tweet. was asked to approve.
Any information about a publicly traded company that could affect its share price. Elon Musk’s attorney, Quinn Emanuel partner Alex Spiro, wrote a letter to the court this week alleging that the SEC lacked support for their amended settlement agreement in light of the jury’s recent finding.
“The reason for the jury’s decision is that the public interest in avoiding unconstitutional settlements easily outweighs the SEC’s stated holding,” Spiro wrote in a filing.
Elon Musk and the SEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for shareholders suing Musk and Tesla over tech-private related tweets still have time to file an appeal.
Levy & Korsinski partner Nicolas Porritt, the shareholders’ lead counsel in that case, did not respond to a request for comment. At the time of the jury’s verdict on February 3, 2023, Porritt told CNBC via e-mail, “We are disappointed by the verdict and are considering next steps.”
Original Content: CNBC