Tesla CEO Elon Musk is continuing to push to eliminate sanctions the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) placed on him related to the “funding secured” saga of 2018, when he stated he would take the automaker’s stock private at $420 a share.
Musk asked the U.S. Supreme Court last week whether the SEC had done more than it had the authority to when imposing the sanctions, which included fines and monitoring his corporate communications, including his X, then known as Twitter, feed.
Musk has referred to the latter punishment as a “muzzle.”
Appealing a decision from earlier this year that upheld the consent decree as it has also been referred to, Musk asked the Supreme Court to hear the same appeal. In May, the U.S. Circuit of Appeals rejected the request the Tesla CEO made to throw out the sanctions.
Musk’s lawyers said the SEC overstepped its boundaries by imposing the punishments and that they violated his First Amendment right to free speech by creating a “gag rule,” Reuters said in its report.
Musk’s appeals regarding other issues have already been agreed to by one court.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in New Orleans, has already decided to reconsider its decision in March that Musk violated federal labor laws by stating that Tesla employees would lose stock options if they became unionized.
Unionization has been an issue for some time, and more recently, Tesla has felt the effects of these efforts as Swedish employees are striking and other European countries are refusing to unload the company’s vehicles as a sign of solidarity.
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