SEC Subpoenas Tesla Again Over Elon Musk's Tweets

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) isn't done with Elon Musk and his tweets quite yet. Tesla disclosed in a quarterly regulatory filing Monday that it received a new subpoena from the SEC on June 13, related to "our governance processes around compliance with the SEC settlement," Chris Isidore and Claire Duffy reported for CNN Business.

Photo Insert: A Tesla production line

That settlement, which stripped Musk of his title as chairman of Tesla while allowing him to remain as CEO, came because of Musk's 2018 tweet that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private.

The SEC charged that despite discussions with Saudi investors, Musk did not have the funding secured to take Tesla private. As part of that settlement, Musk agreed to the charge and also agreed to submit any future tweets containing information that could be material to investors to other executives at Tesla for approval.

Musk has been bitterly critical of the SEC since that settlement. At a TED conference earlier this year, Musk said he agreed to a settlement because if he continued to fight the agency, Tesla's banks would have cut off funding. "I was forced [to lie] to save Tesla's life and that's the only reason," Musk said.

His lawyers also filed complaints with the federal judge overseeing the settlement complaining that the SEC is attempting to "chill his exercise of First Amendment rights" because Musk is an "outspoken critic of the government."

In addition to its investigation of Musk's role at Tesla, the SEC is looking into his tweets about his effort to buy Twitter. The agency sent a letter to Musk on June 2 with questions about his tweets related to the buyout effort, including those about the deal being paused, according to a Thursday regulatory filing.

The agency had already questioned Musk in an April letter about his apparent delay in disclosing his large ownership stake in Twitter.

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