CNN
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The Supreme Court docket on Monday turned away Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s request to again out of a settlement settlement he struck with the Securities and Alternate Fee in 2018 over a sequence of tweets concerning the automobile maker that regulators alleged had been fraudulent.
Musk’s now-infamous 2018 tweet claimed he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 a share, a press release the SEC stated was unfaithful and that led to wild swings within the firm’s inventory worth.
To keep away from enforcement, Musk agreed to a settlement that required him to have an organization lawyer approve his social media posts about Tesla.
Although he agreed to the “Twitter sitter” provision, Musk has subsequently challenged it as a violation of his First Modification rights. Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X.
The Supreme Court docket rejected Musk’s enchantment with out remark and there have been no famous dissents.
A US District Court docket and the 2nd US Circuit Court docket of Appeals rejected Musk’s request to declare the Twitter sitter provision unenforceable.
“We see no proof to assist Musk’s rivalry that the SEC has used the consent decree to conduct bad-faith, harassing investigations of his protected speech,” a three-judge appeals court docket panel wrote final yr. “Had Musk wished to protect his proper to tweet with out even restricted inner oversight regarding sure Tesla-related subjects, he had ‘the correct to litigate and defend towards the [SEC’s] prices’ or to barter a unique settlement – however he selected not to take action.”