Nuked Twitter’s prospective new owner Elon Musk still has some restrictions on his tweets that most of us do not. They’re as a result of a 2018 settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over his infamous’funding secured’ Tweet about taking Tesla private.
Musk complained of an’endless investigation’ that served as an attempt to’chill his exercise of first amendment rights’. A Tweet last fall with a poll about selling 10 percent of his stock had been vetted first, per the consent agreement he is under.
Judge Liman ruled that the court was prevented from reviewing whether or not the subpoena had been properly issued. He also writes that, if the court had ruled on it, the evidence presented showed that the’SEC clearly is entitled to probe the issue’.
The judge did n’t buy his arguments, made via Eminem lyrics or otherwise. The judge said that’even Musk concedes that his free speech rights do not allow him to engage in speech that is or could be considered fraudulent or otherwise violative of the securities laws’.
Musk agreed to the provision requiring the pre-approval of any such communications that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to Tesla or its shareholders. Musk can not now complain that this violates his first amendment rights.
Judge Liman ruled that the SEC’s three sets of inquiries were’unsurprising’. The same goes for his argument that he made the deal under’economic duress’.
The Delaware Supreme Court sided with Musk against shareholders who were suing over the company’s $ 2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity in 2016. A loss there could have cost him more than $ 2 billion, which sounds like economic duress to most of us.
