a US federal judge rejected SEC's sanctions against Elon Musk because he was absent from the court order related to the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled that Musk did not need to be sanctioned when he testified on October 3 and reimbursed SEC for $2,923 in travel expenses. SEC believes that Musk violated the May 31 order and sought stronger deterrence, but Corley found the issue to be meaningless. Musk attributed his absence on September 10 to supervising SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission.
SEC's investigation aims to determine whether Musk delayed disclosure of his purchase of Twitter stock in 2022, which may violate securities laws. Critics believe that this delay allowed Musk to buy the company's stock at a low price before disclosing his 9.2% stake.
Musk previously admitted to misunderstanding SEC's rules. He had reached a settlement with SEC in 2018 regarding tweets related to Tesla. The case is still being heard in the Northern District Court of California. (Bitcoin.com)