Tesla boss Elon Musk has failed to get rid of controls imposed in 2018 on his social media posts about the electric car maker before the US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rejected his request on Monday without a hearing.
Musk had argued that the deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at the time violated his constitutional right to freedom of expression. The SEC countered, among other things, that waiving fundamental rights to resolve disputes was not unusual.
In 2018, the SEC required Musk to first have the company approve his contributions to the Twitter short message service about Tesla, which could impact the automaker’s stock price. Musk bought Twitter in October 2022 and has since renamed the platform X. It is unclear how strictly he and Tesla adhere to the requirement. The tech billionaire has already failed in two legal attempts to overturn the demand.
The reason for the arrangement was Musk’s tweets from August 2018. Musk wrote on Twitter at the time that he was considering taking Tesla private. “Funding secured,” he added. This sentence later led to a lot of controversy because it turned out that there were no written commitments from investors. The SEC accused Musk of misleading investors and, in addition to monitoring his tweets, also forced him to resign as chairman of Tesla’s board of directors. In addition, Musk and Tesla each paid a $20 million fine.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
