SEC and Elon Musk agree to settle lawsuit over Twitter buyout in 2022

Elon Musk appears in the courthouse to attend the trial in his lawsuit over OpenAI for-profit conversion at a federal courthouse, in Oakland, California, U.S., April 29, 2026. Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters The SEC agreed to settle a lawsuit it filed against Elon Musk last year that accused the world's wealthiest person of violating securities law in the run-up to his purchase of Twitter. Filings on Monday, signed by attorneys representing the SEC and Musk, said that Musk's revocable trust would pay a civil penalty of $1.5 million to the commission as part of the settlement. The judge has yet to approve the proposed settlement. The SEC and Musk attorney Alex Spiro didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk, who is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, purchased Twitter for $44 billion in a leveraged buyout in late 2022. Musk later changed the name to X before merging it with his artificial intelligence company, xAI, and then with SpaceX earlier this year. According to Forbes , Musk has a net worth of roughly $790 billion. Prior to his purchase of Twitter, Musk built up a position of greater than 5% in the company, which was publicly traded. At that level, Musk was required to disclose his holdings to the public within 10 calendar days of reaching the 5% threshold. However, Musk was late in filing the disclosure. …