Elon Musk might be, pending shareholder and regulatory approval, be on the cusp of becoming the new owner of Twitter but he still won’t be able to tweet about electric car company Tesla. At least not without his utterances being screened first after a judge threw out his courtroom challenge to the restriction. Regulators imposed the requirement as part of a 2018 settlement that allowed Musk to continue as Tesla’s chief executive.
The USA’s Securities and Exchange Commission charged Musk with alleged securities fraud after he tweeted he had secured the financing necessary to take Tesla private as he railed against short-sellers targeting the electric car maker. However, with Musk unable to present any tangible evidence he had actually secured the financial backing that would have been necessary potentially complete such a deal, he was accused of market manipulation. The Tesla share price leapt on his tweet.
Musk and the SEC have long running bad blood between them with the world’s richest man recently ratcheting up his swipes at the regulator. Earlier this month he referred to Commission as “those bastards”.
The judge that ruled against Musk’s bid to have the edict on his Tesla tweets overturned stated he felt he was complaining now the company, which has defied the short-sellers to rise to a market capitalisation of over $900 billion, was “all but invincible”.
US district judge for Manhattan Lewis Liman rejected the argument of Musk’s lawyers that the SEC’s treatment of their client“crossed the line into harassment” and contravened his constitutional right to free speech.
Liman ruled:
“Musk cannot now seek to retract the agreement he knowingly and willingly entered by simply bemoaning that he felt like he had to agree to it at the time but now once the specter of the litigation is a distant memory and his company has become, in his estimation, all but invincible wishes that he had not.”
Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist” and suggested his acquisition of Twitter is motivated by a desire to ensure a forum which allows for free speech as he defines it.
Tesla investors have been less enthusiastic about their chief executive adding a new company to a portfolio that already includes the electric car company, satellite launch and space exploration company SpaceX, tunnelling company The Boring Company and Neuralink, the neurotechnology company developing implantable brain-machine interfaces. Concerns that ownership of Twitter will prove a distraction for Musk have seen the Tesla share price lose over 15% this week.