Elon Musk’s decree with the SEC that enables the Tesla CEO’s Tweets to be surveilled has been reaffirmed after his requests to have it thrown out were denied by a Federal Appeals Court on Monday.
In 2018, Musk was required to have his communications on Twitter looked after following his well-known “Funding secured” Tweet, which was related to taking Tesla shares private.
Musk’s Tweet was found to have “defrauded investors.”
The SEC and Musk agreed after the fact to a series of terms, which required Musk and Tesla to pay $20 million in fines each, and the CEO’s Tweets to be looked after. Musk also relinquished his position as Tesla chairman.
The $40 million in fines were to be dispersed to investors that were affected by the Tweet.
In March 2022, a Federal Judge authorized the SEC to distribute the funds, which had been held for nearly four years.
Musk has called the Tweet surveillance terms a “government-imposed muzzle” and has pushed to have the consent decree thrown out on several occasions. Most recently, Musk requested the terms be thrown out last week.
Musk said recently that the SEC has used the consent decree to “conduct bad-faith, harassing investigations,” according to Reuters, and that the terms of the agreement were increasingly difficult to comply.
The Appeals Court threw out Musk’s request to abolish the consent decree because he could have argued and negotiated for different terms. The Court does not feel that it needs to change the terms and revisit the matter because Musk “has now changed his mind.”
In an interview with 60 Minutes several years ago, Musk said that his Tweets had not been approved by anyone because the first amendment protected his communications.
However, Musk did say that the only Tweets that would need to be “reviewed” would be ones that could cause movement in the stock.
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