Photo: Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has appealed Judge Lewis Liman's refusal to end his 2018 agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which required Tesla's assigned lawyer to check some of his Twitter posts.
Musk will ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan to overturn U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman's April 27 decision, according to the filing on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Liman's decision allowed to uphold the decision on Musk's agreement with the SEC, which settled its lawsuit accusing Tesla's head of defrauding investors.
The SEC case against Tesla and Musk in 2018 is very high-profile. The manufacturer and its CEO had to make a deal and pay a multi-million dollar fine. The head of Tesla said that funding for his company's privatization was actually secured at the time he posted his tweets in the summer of 2018. However, the SEC continued an active public investigation, which harmed the company significantly. Thus, under pressure, Musk was forced to give in to the SEC. “So I was forced to concede to the SEC unlawfully. Those bastards,” he said during Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) in Vancouver in April.
In February 2022, Musk has accused US regulators of targeting him and of “an ongoing investigation” over his criticism of the government. He is distinguished by his fearless criticism of the US government, its regulators, and individual politicians. It has been repeatedly observed that after some time after his specific statements, some regulatory bodies begin to conduct additional investigations against Tesla, undermining the authority of the manufacturer and its CEO.
SEC is especially assertive on this and continues to interfere with the company's structure, trying to control what Musk says and writes. In a court filing, he said that the SEC has engaged in outsized efforts to monitor the firm that “seem calculated to chill his exercise” of free speech. However, Liman dismissed Musk's arguments as unconvincing.
© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.
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About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
