Sept 27 – The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced its intention to pursue sanctions against Elon Musk for not appearing for testimony in an investigation concerning his acquisition of Twitter, now rebranded as X. This was revealed in a court filing on Friday.

Earlier this year, a federal judge mandated that Musk testify as part of the SEC’s investigation into whether he complied with legal requirements when disclosing his Twitter stock purchases and whether his statements regarding the deal were misleading.

Initially, Musk was scheduled to testify on September 10, following an agreement reached after several scheduling conflicts. SEC attorneys traveled to Los Angeles for the testimony, but three hours before it was set to begin, Musk’s lawyer informed the SEC that Musk had to urgently attend the launch of the Polaris Dawn mission on the East Coast and could not attend or reschedule.

The SEC claims Musk violated a court order that required him to obtain “written consent of the SEC or an order of the Court” before modifying the testimony date. The agency expressed frustration in its filing, stating, “Musk’s excuse itself smacks of gamesmanship.” It noted that SpaceX had announced the launch date days in advance, implying that Musk was aware of the scheduling conflict well before the testimony.

The SEC is now seeking “meaningful conditional relief” should Musk fail to appear at the rescheduled testimony in early October. They are also planning to file a motion for sanctions to recover costs incurred from the canceled testimony.

In response, Musk’s legal team argued that a court intervention is unnecessary, as both parties have agreed on a new date for his testimony. They emphasized that Musk is under a court order to appear unless an unavoidable emergency arises.

This incident marks the latest chapter in the ongoing conflict between Musk and the SEC, which dates back to 2018 when the agency sued him for falsely claiming on Twitter that he had secured funding to take Tesla private.