Elon Musk has been ordered by a federal court to answer more questions about his takeover of Twitter, now called X, during an interview scheduled for Thursday.
The big question in the financial world is whether he will actually show up this time. Last month, he missed a court-ordered meeting with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Los Angeles.
This upcoming interview is part of an investigation into whether Musk took too long to reveal he was buying shares of Twitter before he officially bought the company in 2022. Musk has admitted that this delay was a mistake.
The SEC is trying to make sure Musk appears this Thursday and is considering imposing penalties if he doesn’t. At a previous hearing on September 10, the SEC spent a lot of money sending three lawyers to question Musk, but he canceled just three hours before the meeting.
His lawyers claimed he had to attend a “high-risk” SpaceX launch on the East Coast, but the SEC later found out that Musk had talked about this launch two days before the meeting and did not inform them of his plans.
The SEC is investigating whether Musk’s stock purchases and his public statements about them broke any laws. Although he has already given testimony twice, he refused to appear a third time, claiming the SEC was harassing him. This led the SEC to ask the court to order him to testify again.
SEC lawyers have argued that Musk’s excuse for missing the last meeting seemed suspicious and have urged the judge to impose penalties to prevent him from skipping the next one.
Musk’s lawyer has stated that he has cooperated fully with the investigation, providing documents and appearing for testimony multiple times without rescheduling.
The SEC has not commented publicly, but one of its lawyers emphasized to the court that it is important to put an end to Musk’s delays and tactics to avoid giving testimony.
As reported by the BBC, this situation highlights ongoing tensions between Musk and regulatory authorities as they try to ensure compliance with securities laws.
Credit : BBC
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0e1xgw4dqdo