Musk loses free speech court battle; Tesla to keep pre-screening tweets
Enlarge (credit: LUDOVIC MARIN / Contributor | AFP)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk hoped that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would narrow or possibly even end the terms of a 2018 securities fraud settlement that require a lawyer to review his Tesla tweets before he posts them. Instead, a federal appeals court today rejected Musk's claims that the SEC's consent decree violated his First Amendment rights by placing a prior restraint on his speech.
This means Musk is stuck with what his lawyers called a "government-imposed muzzle" on his Tesla tweets.
The SEC's consent decree came after a controversial Musk tweet claiming that he was considering taking Tesla private after allegedly securing funding-a tweet that caused investors to lose billions.