The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has refuted claims made by Tesla that they are targeting CEO Elon Musk.
The issue surrounds the SEC settlement with Musk over his infamous tweet back in 2018 noting his funding secured to take Tesla private.
As per a Tesla regulatory filing this month, the SEC sought information about the company’s governance processes. This routine information request was to ensure Tesla and Musk complied with the parties settlement in 2018.
In response to this request, Musk’s lawyer wrote a letter to US District Judge Alison Nathan. The letter notes that the agency targets Musk with an “unrelenting investigation”.
Further to that, the letter also claims the only reason for this investigation is Musk is “an outspoken critic of the government”.
A further claim in the letter is that the SEC issued subpoenas without court approval.
In the SEC’s response, the commission notes this is all not true. The commission did not issue subpoenas in this litigation. In addition, they say if Musk or Tesla:
“have legitimate objections with the SEC’s process outside the current litigation, they should pursue those objections in the appropriate forum.”
Tesla did not provide a comment on the situation or ongoing work by the SEC to Bloomberg.
