Technology

Elon Musk wants his freedom of speech, on Twitter

Ishita SrivastavaMarch 11, 2022 | 17:00 IST

Tesla's Elon Musk wants to end his agreement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, set in 2018. Elon also wants the SEC'S subpoena that is requesting him to submit records of a pre-approval for the Twitter poll he conducted in November 2021 for 'potentially' selling some Tesla stocks to end. He has appealed to a federal judge in the US for the agreement and subpeona to end. 

The agreement signed with the SEC requires Elon to have his tweets pre-approved by a lawyer. The agreement was signed with consent from both parties. 

Elon's lawyers wrote to the US District Judge Alison Nathan, Manhattan on March 8, "The SEC’s pursuit of Mr Musk has crossed the line into harassment, which is quintessential bad faith." His lawyers have also said that the agreement should not be allowed to conduct 'roving' and 'unbounded' investigations while holding back Elon's 'constitutional right to free speech'.

The agreement was a result of a false tweet in 2018 saying that he secured funding to privatise Tesla at US $420 per share. After a subsequent lawsuit, Tesla and Elon settled by individually paying US $20 million as civil fines. He also left Tesla's chairmanship. 

Photo: Getty Images

In the last quarter of 2021, Elon began a Twitter poll 'in a fit of pique over liberal Senators’ proposals to tax billionaires to sell off some of Tesla's stock. He sold off about 10% of his Tesla stock that cost him billions. The stock that he sold via Twitter supposedly could produce enough tax revenue to fund the Commerce Department for a year. Since the November poll, Elon has sold off sold $16.4 billion worth of stock. (READ MORE HERE: 10 reasons why Elon Musk should uninstall Twitter and throw away his phone

The above tweet caused such chaos on social media that it raised questions on whether Elon was following his end of the agreement and whether a Tesla lawyer gave their pre-approval before he tweeted about Tesla's company information and stocks. 

Tesla defended their founder and said on March 8 that Elon's November 2021 tweet was, "behaviour the SEC should encourage: a CEO’s transparency with the public and shareholders about a proposed stock sale."

In December 2021, TIME magazine also named Elon Musk as 'Person of the Year' for 2021. In its profile of Elon, the magazine said that the he is currently the richest private citizen in history and has a net worth of more than US $250 billion. (READ MORE HERE: Why is Elon Musk TIME Person of the Year 2021? Hubristic supervillain, for one

Last updated: March 11, 2022 | 17:00
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