Elon Musk’s attempt to swat away a U.S. securities case has hit a wall.
A federal court in Washington declined to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the billionaire of dragging his feet before revealing a major stake in Twitter back in 2022. The ruling keeps alive claims that the delayed disclosure gave Musk a window to quietly scoop up shares at prices the market hadn’t yet caught up with.
The judge rejected Musk’s argument that regulators were stretching their authority or singling him out because of his public criticism of government agencies. None of his constitutional claims, the court said, were enough to derail the case at this stage.
At the heart of the dispute is an 11-day gap. Regulators say Musk crossed the 5% ownership threshold in Twitter shares and waited too long to tell the public, a pause that allegedly allowed him to buy more than $500 million worth of stock before the news pushed prices higher. The agency is seeking to claw back roughly $150 million it claims was saved during that period, along with a civil penalty.
Musk has described the delay as an innocent mistake. He has also framed the lawsuit as selective enforcement, arguing that the punishment being sought is wildly out of step with past cases. The court was unmoved, pointing to Congress’s intent behind disclosure rules: prevent investors from quietly building control while others remain in the dark.
In a sharply worded decision, the judge noted that while early disclosure might have made Musk’s buying spree more expensive, that inconvenience does not override the law’s purpose or free-speech protections.
The case is the latest chapter in a long, uneasy relationship between Musk and U.S. regulators. Years earlier, a high-profile settlement over social media posts about Tesla reshaped how he communicates publicly. Since then, his business empire has only grown larger and more complex.
Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter in 2022, later rebranding the platform as X. More recently, his space and satellite company absorbed his artificial intelligence venture, a deal that vaulted the combined business into the top tier of private companies worldwide. His personal fortune now sits far above any other individual, according to widely cited estimates.
For now, though, the spotlight is back on a narrow slice of market rules—and whether one of the world’s richest figures played too long in the shadows before flipping on the lights.
