TheCorporateCounsel.net

Here we go again. In 2019, John wrote about Elon Musk’s revised agreement with the SEC to run a laundry list of certain types of tweets by an “experienced securities lawyer,” which arose out of the “funding secured” debacle and has been an enforcement headache ever since. John asked at that time, “Who will bell the cat?” And 82% of you predicted that we would just keep running through variations of the dispute for the foreseeable future.

You were right!* Bloomberg reported that Musk has filed a new brief asking a federal appeals court to throw out his “Twitter Sitter” agreement, making a “free speech” argument. Here’s more detail from the article:

Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, has claimed without success that the SEC is harassing him and that the agreement violates his free-speech rights. US District Judge Lewis Liman in April refused to release him from the deal and end the requirement for a “Twitter Sitter.” Liman said Musk was “simply bemoaning that he felt like he had to agree to it at the time” and now “wishes that he had not.”

In his April decision, Liman ruled that Musk waived his 1st Amendment Constitutional Right to free speech, a finding Musk denied in his appeal brief.

This appeal follows another SEC-jab from Musk back in June, when he supported a cert petition seeking SCOTUS review of the SEC’s use of “gag orders” in connection with the settlement of enforcement proceedings.

The case is Musk v SEC, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-1291 – and this will probably not be the last we’ll hear of it.

*You were right…so far. There is still time for Musk to become dictator of the world for life.

– Liz Dunshee