In that case, if you thought that Elon Musk was upset by the extremely frequent attention in relation to his activities by the Securities and Exchange Commission, then you guessed it right. The thing is that Elon Musk and Tesla wrote a letter to the court of the Southern District of New York, accusing the above-mentioned commission of conducting a “campaign of persecution.” The regulator allegedly reneged on a promise to pay Tesla shareholders $40 million under an agreement with Elon Musk in 2018 over his tweets about the privatization of the electric car maker, and instead diverted its resources to “endless baseless investigations” against the CEO and his company.
Telsa and its CEO argued that the Securities and Exchange Commission sent the subpoenas “unilaterally” and that the court, not just the Commission, should have enforced its compliance with the settlement order. The Securities and Exchange Commission allegedly took revenge on Elon Musk for being “an outspoken critic of the government” and was more interested in suppressing his First Amendment right to free speech than in fair observance of the law.
And yes, according to the statement of the company and Elon Musk, there were no violations. Now Elon Musk and Tesla are asking the court to “correct the course” of the regulator’s activities, including a conference to discuss the commission’s alleged non-payment of compensation, as well as frequent investigations. They hope the court will “put an end” to the alleged prosecution by forcing the SEC to pay stockholders and, in general, the said government body has repeatedly investigated Elon Musk’s tweets in the years since the settlement. And although no violations on his part have been identified since that moment, the commission also did not find Elon Musk guilty of these tweets.
Despite this, officials still maintained that Musk discussed key financial topics, such as production levels and inventory estimates, without any of the prior approval required under the 2018 agreement. Tesla claims that these tweets were not subject to the terms of the deal, but it’s safe to say that the current situation is not entirely clear.
