The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that it is seeking monetary and legal sanctions aimed at compelling billionaire Elon Musk to appear for a scheduled testimony after the entrepreneur allegedly failed to appear and provide testimony to the financial regulator about the $44 billion purchase of the Twitter platform in 2022.
More specifically, the SEC intends to file sanctions against Musk, ordering him to "Show Cause [for] why he should not be held in civil contempt" for allegedly violating the original terms of the agreement stipulated in the May 2024 order, which established the September 19 date for the testimony.
The SEC also seeks monetary relief to recoup travel costs lost by Musk canceling the meetings and "all other relief" the court may grant the SEC.
According to court documents, the meeting was originally slated for September 19, 2024, and representatives for Musk purportedly sought to have the date rescheduled several times.
Source: Court Listener.
The SEC accused Musk of violating the terms of the agreement by failing to obtain “written consent of the SEC or order of the Court” to modify his meeting with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Musk's attorneys respond
Attorneys for Musk have characterized the move as "drastic" and were critical of the government regulator.
Musk's legal counsel stressed that the Securities and Exchange Commission already accepted a request to reschedule the meeting for October 3, 2024, in Los Angeles, California, and argued that the court's intervention was unnecessary. In response to the SEC's proposed sanctions, Musk's attorney Alex Spiro wrote:
"The parties have already rescheduled the testimony for approximately three weeks after the original date — an immaterial amount of time in the context of this investigation — which began two and a half years ago. Any request for sanctions should be denied."
The letter explained that the only reason Musk missed the previous meetings was due to an emergency and reassured the court that he would appear for the October meeting.
Musk faces international regulatory scrutiny
In August, the Irish Data Protection Commission, a watchdog group from the European Union, filed a lawsuit against the X social media platform — accusing the platform of AI data violations and demanded that X stop collecting the data of European users.
In a Sept. 2 ruling, the Brazilian Supreme Court upheld the X ban originally ordered by Judge Alexandre De Moraes in a unanimous vote — dashing hopes that Musk would be able to overturn the order in the courts.
More recently, Dawn Butler — a member of the United Kingdom's parliament and Labour Party — floated the idea of summoning Musk to testify before parliament about the X social media platform's content moderation policies.
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