Elon Musk reveals SEC 'settlement demand' to pay fine over Twitter purchase, mocks SEC head

Elon Musk revealed on Friday that he had received a “settlement demand” from the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with his takeover of Twitter back in 2022.  

Musk posted a letter on Thursday from his lawyer, Alex Spiro, to Gary Gensler, chairman of the SEC, stating that he had been told to “agree within 48 hours to either accept a monetary payment or face charges on numerous counts.”

“Oh Gary, how could you do this to me?” Musk wrote in an X post that contained a copy of the letter.

Gensler has announced his intention to resign on January 20, inauguration day. 

In the letter, Spiro said the demand from Gensler was related to “certain purchases, sales and disclosures of Twitter shares” and was the latest sign of what he called “more than six years of harassment of Mr. Musk by the Commission,” according to the New York Post.  

Spiro also said that the SEC has “reopened” a probe into Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink.

The SEC on Tuesday sent Musk an offer to settle but extended the deadline until this coming Monday, Reuters reported, saying that the SEC had received a request for more time. 

Spiro suggested that the SEC’s latest actions against Musk may have been politically motivated and demanded to know who directed these actions, “whether it was you or the White House,” he wrote to Gensler.

In a separate post, Musk shared an AI-generated photo depicting Gensler as a snail-like creature wearing a suit.

“Asked @Grok to draw a picture of @GaryGensler. Very flattering, I think!” Musk wrote.

Musk also targeted the SEC in another post, writing that it was “just another weaponized institution doing political dirty work.”

“It is the policy of the SEC to conduct investigations on a confidential basis to preserve the integrity of its investigative process,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement. “The SEC therefore does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation.”

The SEC has been investigating Musk over his actions in 2022 during his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, which he has since renamed X.