Elon Musk says he’ll testify in SEC investigation of his Twitter purchase

After dodging the Securities and Exchange Commission for months, Elon Musk has finally agreed to testify in the agency’s investigation into his 2022 acquisition of Twitter.

The SEC began investigating Musk’s purchase of Twitter, now known as X, on May 22 over concerns about whether Musk broke federal securities law when he bought stock in the social media platform. 

In May 2023, Musk was subpoenaed by the commission to give his testimony at the SEC’s San Francisco office. Musk agreed to appear on Sept. 15, but he told the commission he would not appear two days beforehand, raising “several spurious objections.”

The SEC sued Musk last October for his testimony, and now Musk has agreed to appear for no more than five hours of questioning this year. If Musk needs to reschedule, he will need to obtain a court order or the written consent of the SEC.

The SEC said in a press release that it wanted “Musk’s testimony to obtain information not already in the SEC’s possession that is relevant to its legitimate and lawful investigation.” 

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Musk purchased a minority stake in Twitter and disclosed it in April 2022, but he was late with disclosure filing. After his filing, Musk said he planned to be just a passive stakeholder, but days later, he accepted and then rejected a board seat at Twitter. By the end of the month, he announced that he planned to buy Twitter for $44 billion. He tried getting out of the deal, but he closed the acquisition deal in October 2022.

Musk and the SEC have been butting heads for years. In 2018, the SEC sued Musk over tweets that indicated he had the financial backing to take Tesla private, a move that the commission said misled investors. As a result, Musk was ousted as Tesla’s chairman, and his posts regarding Tesla must be approved by a lawyer.