Elon Musk in the Crosshairs of the US Securities and Exchange Commission: Dispute Over Twitter Shares

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit this week against Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly Twitter. The allegation: Musk violated disclosure requirements when acquiring Twitter shares in 2022. Specifically, he allegedly failed to timely disclose that he had acquired over 5% of Twitter's common stock in March of that year. According to the SEC, this omission allowed Musk to continue buying shares at an artificially low price, saving him $150 million less than the market value would have required. In April 2022, Musk began the purchase of Twitter, which he eventually completed in October of the same year. The purchase price amounted to a substantial $44 billion.