The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against American entrepreneur Elon Musk, accusing him of legal violations during his acquisition of social media platform Twitter, now called X, and believing that Musk's actions were intentional and amounted to manipulation.
According to US securities regulators, Musk failed to disclose to the SEC his beneficial ownership of more than 5% of Twitter's outstanding shares in March 2022. This omission is significant because the share price could have risen dramatically under these conditions. However, the billionaire purchased shares at artificially lowered prices, allowing him to avoid paying nearly $150 million.
However, Musk's legal team quickly responded by challenging the SEC's complaint. One of his lawyers argued that the tech magnate "did nothing wrong" and should not be penalized.
Notably, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX completed the Twitter acquisition deal on October 27, 2022. The next day, Musk took over as head of the company and dismissed the previous leadership.
