The US Securities and Exchange Commission has Filed a case Alleging against Elon Musk that he failed to disclose that he had accumulated shares in Twitter, allowing him to buy shares at “artificially low prices”.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit alleges the billionaire Tesla boss saved $150m (£123m) in share buybacks as a result.
According to SEC rules, investors whose holdings exceed 5% have 10 days to report that they have exceeded that threshold. Musk did so 21 days after the purchase, the filing said.
In a post on the social media platformMusk called the SEC a “totally broken institution.”
He also accused the regulator of wasting its time when “there are so many genuine crimes that go unpunished.”
“Musk’s breach resulted in substantial economic loss to investors,” the SEC’s complaint said.
In a statement emailed to BBC News, Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, called the lawsuit a “fraud” and a “harassment campaign” against his client.
Twitter’s share price rose more than 27 percent after Musk made public his purchase of the shares on April 4, 2022, the SEC said.
Musk bought Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion and has since renamed the platform X.
The complaint was filed by the SEC in a federal court in Washington, DC. on Tuesday.
The lawsuit also asked the court to order Musk to forfeit “unfair” profits and pay fines.