Elon Musk has settled a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) civil lawsuit that accused him of delaying the disclosure of his initial purchases of Twitter stock in 2022. Under the settlement, a trust in Musk's name will pay a $1.5 million civil penalty, without admitting wrongdoing. Musk will not have to forfeit any money he allegedly saved from the delay.
The settlement was disclosed on Monday in the Washington DC federal court. The SEC had filed the lawsuit in January 2025, alleging that Musk's 11-day delay in revealing his initial 5% stake in Twitter allowed him to buy more than $500 million in shares at artificially low prices before he disclosed a 9.2% stake. The SEC had sought a civil fine and repayment of $150 million, which Musk allegedly saved at the expense of investors.
Musk called the delay inadvertent and accused the SEC of violating his free speech rights. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, stated: 'Mr Musk has now been cleared of all issues related to the late filing of forms in the Twitter acquisition, as we said from the outset he would be.'
The civil penalty is the largest in SEC history for this type of violation. The settlement comes amid a shift in SEC enforcement priorities under new chair Paul Atkins, and after the SEC enforcement chief abruptly left her job in March. Musk has had a fraught relationship with the SEC since a 2018 securities fraud case over his tweets about taking Tesla private.
This case is separate from a civil lawsuit where a jury held Musk liable for defrauding Twitter shareholders over his comments about bots. Musk is seeking to overturn that verdict.
