Elon Musk settles lawsuit over Twitter takeover for $1.5m
Tech tycoon Elon Musk has finally put one of his longest-running legal battles to rest after reaching a $1.5m (£1.2m) settlement with the US regulator.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil lawsuit against the billionaire, alleging violations of securities laws in the run-up to his 2022 purchase of Twitter.
Musk, who is chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, purchased Twitter for $44bn in a leveraged buyout in late 2022, later changed the name to X, then merged it with his artificial intelligence company, xAI, and then with SpaceX earlier this year.
The lawsuit, filed under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, alleged that Musk was 11 days late in disclosing that he had acquired a major stake in Twitter, and that he had bought up shares in the social media company on the cheap.
This civil action against Musk came six days before Joe Biden left the White House and was replaced by Donald Trump. Paul Atkins replaced Gensler as chair in April 2025.
The SEC has initially estimated that Musk allegedly underpaid Twitter investors by more than $150m during the period.
Tesla boss settles with US regulator
However, on Monday, the SEC revealed that a trust in Musk’s name, the Elon Musk Revocable Trust, will pay a $1.5m civil penalty without admitting wrongdoing.
In a statement, Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, said: “Mr Musk has now been cleared of all issues related to the late filing of forms in the Twitter acquisition, as we said from the outset he would be.”
However, a person familiar with the settlement stated that Musk’s civil penalty is the largest in SEC history for the type of violation he was accused of.
The Tesla boss also had a run-in with the regulator in 2018 after settling fraud claims with the SEC over a Twitter message that said he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private, a deal that didn’t go through. Musk agreed to step down as Tesla’s chairman and pay a $20m fine.
He then accused the US government in 2022 of forcing him to sign a settlement that forced him to step down as chairman, saying the SEC had a personal “vendetta” against him.