Elon Musk has been forced to testify in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation regarding his acquisition of social media platform Twitter, now renamed X, according to a lawsuit.
Judge Laurel Beeler affirmed the SEC’s authority in the case and affirmed that the subpoena was intended to gather information relevant to the investigation.
“The court grants the SEC’s request to enforce the subpoena: it seeks relevant information and it is otherwise valid,” the judge wrote.
The SEC and Musk must agree on a date and location for his testimony within a week.
Last year, the SEC initiated legal action against Musk for failing to comply with a subpoena served since May. The regulator was investigating possible securities fraud related to Musk’s actions in 2022, particularly his stock purchases and building a stake in Twitter before the leveraged buyout.
At the time, the SEC said it needed Musk’s testimony to obtain information relevant to its legitimate and lawful investigation.
However, Musk criticized the SEC’s subpoena as harassment and called for comprehensive regulatory reform.
“A comprehensive review of [regulatory] Agencies are desperately needed, along with a commission to take punitive action against individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain… I can’t wait for this to happen,” Musk said.
Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter in October 2022 for approximately $44 billion. He then introduced several features aimed at transforming the platform into a multi-functional ‘do-it-all’ app.
Previous announcements pointed to the launch of a peer-to-peer (P2P) payment system this year, although it remains unclear whether crypto will be involved in these developments.
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