Mystery Surrounds Musk Interview With U.S. Regulators

U.S. regulators and representatives of Elon Musk have remained tight-lipped about whether the billionaire attended an interview concerning his takeover of Twitter—now called X—as required by a federal court, Lily Jamali reported for BBC News.

Three hours before the appointment, Musk’s lawyers notified the SEC that he would not be able to appear. I Photo: Donald J. Trump Facebook

Last month, Musk was a no-show for a court-ordered appearance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) office in Los Angeles.

However, Musk fell unusually quiet on X, not posting for several hours on Thursday morning, and on Friday, he wrote a post indicating he had visited Los Angeles. The SEC is investigating whether Musk waited too long to disclose he was building up a stake in Twitter before his 2022 takeover—a delay he has previously described as a mistake.

The nation’s top securities regulator had called for possible sanctions if Musk failed to attend.

For the September 10 court hearing, the SEC said it spent thousands of dollars to dispatch three lawyers—two from San Francisco and another from Washington, D.C.—to take a sworn deposition from the billionaire tech mogul.

But three hours before the appointment, Musk’s lawyers notified the SEC that he would not be able to appear.

Musk, his lawyers wrote in a declaration, had urgently traveled to the East Coast a day earlier for a "high-risk" launch by his rocket company SpaceX. However, SpaceX had posted about the timing of the scheduled launch two days before Musk’s deposition date.