Washington DC:

A judge in the United States has rejected a request by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow tech billionaire Elon Musk to skip a meeting with the regulator, to watch one of his rocket launches. is Mr. Musk was ordered by a court to meet with SEC officials in September to provide testimony to the regulator’s investigation into the USD 44 billion takeover of X (then Twitter).

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said the billionaire had no need to grant his absence, as he paid the airfare for three agency lawyers who appeared in Los Angeles on Sept. 10. Agreed to indemnify the SEC for fulfilling

Mr. Musk eventually complied with the order and met with SEC lawyers to testify on October 3.

“Because the current circumstances preclude any opportunity for meaningful relief that the court may grant, the SEC’s request remains moot,” Corley wrote in the order.

The order states that simply paying for travel expenses will not prevent many others from defying court orders, “much less Mr. Musk’s extraordinary means.”

According to a Bloomberg report, the SEC urged a federal judge to impose sanctions on Mr. Musk to remind him that violating its order is not “trivial.”

However, the report said that Mr. Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, contested the claim and argued that the billionaire’s absence from the deposition was justified because of an urgent responsibility he had as the head of SpaceX. was, and they had to travel to Florida. Cape Canaveral launched rockets on commercial spacewalk missions.

Mr. Spiro claimed that his client’s voluntary offer to pay the agency USD 2,923 was sufficient. According to Forbes magazine, Mr. Musk is worth 321.7 billion US dollars.

No statement from Mr. Musk’s lawyers or the SEC was available at the time of filing this story.

Market regulator investigations

The SEC is investigating whether Musk — whose businesses include electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX and who is the world’s richest person — violated securities laws as early as 2022. was violated and waited at least 10 days to reveal that it had started accumulating Twitter stock. .

Critics and some investors have said he let him buy shares on the cheap before he eventually disclosed a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, and offered to buy the entire company shortly thereafter.

In July, Mr. Musk said he misunderstood the SEC’s disclosure rules and “all indications” were that he had made a “mistake.”

The SEC also sued Mr. Musk in 2018 over his Twitter posts about taking Tesla private. He settled the case by paying a US$20 million fine, agreeing to allow Tesla’s lawyers to review certain posts in advance and to step down as chairman of Tesla.

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