Court orders Elon Musk to testify for SEC, rejects his claim of “harassment”
Enlarge / Elon Musk leaves court in San Francisco, California Jan. 24, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)
A federal court ordered Elon Musk to comply with a subpoena issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, rejecting Musk's claims that the SEC is "harassing" him and exceeding its authority to investigate.
In an order issued Saturday, US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler wrote that "the SEC has broad authority to issue subpoenas." The information it seeks from Musk is relevant to the agency's investigation into "possible violations of the federal securities laws in connection with the respondent's 2022 purchases of Twitter stock and his 2022 statements and SEC filings relating to Twitter," Beeler wrote.
Musk testified twice in July 2022, but the SEC said it has obtained thousands of new documents since then and wants him to testify a third time. Beeler's order granted the SEC's application to enforce the subpoena and ordered the SEC and Musk to "confer within one week and settle on a date and location for the testimony. If they cannot agree, then they may submit a joint letter brief with their respective positions, and the court will decide the dispute for them."