Elon Musk Settles Sec Lawsuit Over Twitter Stock Disclosures

Elon Musk has struck a settlement deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve a 2025 lawsuit tied to the billionaire's purchases of Twitter stock three years earlier, according to a court filing.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO's revocable trust will pay $1.5 million to settle the case, without admitting or denying the allegations, according to the filing, posted Monday. Attorneys for Musk and the SEC wrote that if the court approves the proposed settlement, the SEC will move to dismiss the complaint against Musk "in his personal capacity, which will resolve this case in its entirety."

Filed in the final days of then-SEC Chair Gary Gensler's tenure, the lawsuit alleged that Musk was 11 days late in disclosing that he had acquired a major stake in Twitter — and that, the SEC said, allowed him to buy up shares in the social media company on the cheap. The SEC estimated in its complaint that Musk, who was at the time a powerful ally of then-incoming President Donald Trump, underpaid Twitter investors by more than $150 million during the period. Musk ultimately acquired Twitter in a $44 billion purchase in October 2022, rebranding it as X the following year.

"Mr. Musk has now been cleared of all issues related to the late filing of forms in the Twitter acquisition, as we said from the outset he would be," said Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, in a statement. "A trust vehicle has agreed to a small fine for being late on one filing."

The settlement marks an anticlimactic ending to what had been one of the highest-profile SEC lawsuits of former President Joe Biden's administration — and the latest clash between the Wall Street regulator and Musk. In the years since the SEC went after Musk over his social-media posts about taking Tesla private, which led to a multi-million dollar settlement, the billionaire has emerged as one of the agency's most prominent critics. He once famously said he doesn't respect the SEC.

Now led by Chair Paul Atkins, a long-time proponent for light-touch regulation and enforcement, the SEC has taken a starkly less confrontational approach toward enforcement since Trump's inauguration last year.

The agency has notably walked away from several lawsuits and probes tied to cryptocurrency companies. And SEC data show that the agency has significantly pulled back on its enforcement activity. Atkins has argued the SEC is correcting course away from more technical violations so that staff can pursue more bread-and-butter fraud and market manipulation cases.

At $1.5 million, the penalty, nonetheless, marks the largest ever for such an infraction, said a person familiar with the settlement, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. But for Marc Fagel, a former enforcement official at the SEC, the settlement was still concerning.

"I do think that it suggests if you're wealthy or powerful enough then there aren't going to be consequences," said Fagel, who previously led the SEC's San Francisco office. "The optics of this are terrible."