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Elon Musk has agreed to testify in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) probe of his 2022 deal to purchase Twitter, putting a pin in the Tesla CEO’s latest legal feud.
Musk and the SEC have agreed on an unspecified court date when he will be questioned, according to court papers filed Thursday in the Northern District of California. Musk has also agreed to waive the right to appeal a May 14 court order enforcing the regulatory agency’s subpoena to question him in a session that will not exceed five hours.
The SEC sued Musk last October to compel his testimony after he refused to attend a September interview for its probe. He has already given testimony twice in the case, but the SEC has argued that additional testimony is necessary because it has received “thousands of new documents” from various parties in the case.
Musk, who is the world’s richest individual and has had run-ins with the SEC while leading Tesla, said the agency was “harassing” him. However, a federal judge in February ruled that the testimony is “not unduly burdensome” for Musk.
Regulators are investigating whether Musk violated federal securities law in connection to his purchase of shares of Twitter, now known as X, as well as his statements and regulatory filings related to the company. Twitter shareholders have accused Musk of illegally delaying his disclosure that he purchased stock in order to keep prices low.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month rejected Musk’s challenge to what he calls a “government-imposed muzzle” on his tweeting privileges that came as part of a major 2018 settlement with the SEC. His lawyers have argued that the SEC overstepped when it enforced a consent decree requiring oversight of some of his social media posts.