Elon Musk Agrees to Pay $150 Million to Settle SEC Case Over Twitter Stock Disclosure Dispute

BlockBeats News, May 5th, Elon Musk's Trust has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding its acquisition of Twitter (now X). The SEC initially accused Musk of disclosing his Twitter holdings 11 days late in 2022, taking advantage of the low price to raise over $500 million, leading to sellers of the stock losing at least $150 million.

According to a joint filing submitted to a federal judge on Monday, to facilitate this settlement, the SEC took the unusual procedural step of adding the "Musk Revocable Trust," which was used to buy the stock, as a defendant. Under the proposed agreement, the trust does not need to admit any wrongdoing, Musk himself faces no personal penalties, and the SEC will completely drop its charges against him.

Elon Musk's lawyer, Alex Spiro, responded, "They initially wanted $200 million, Musk refused to settle. In the end, he won, only allowing a trust entity to pay a small fine for filing a few days late without admitting to anything, and the case is closed." It is worth noting that Musk, who is the largest donor to the Trump campaign, has already repaired relations with the White House this year, and the SEC has recently shown leniency towards cryptocurrency companies such as Coinbase and Kraken that donated to the president.