Artificially depressing stock prices, Elon Musk agrees to pay a fine of over 10 million yuan

Glonghui, May 6th | According to Reuters and other media reports, a court document submitted on May 4th shows that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reached a settlement with Tesla CEO Musk regarding the lawsuit over alleged violations during the acquisition of Twitter. As part of the settlement agreement, the revocable trust under Musk's name—used to purchase Twitter shares at the time—will pay a civil penalty of $1.5 million (approximately RMB 10.25 million) to the SEC. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed the lawsuit against Musk in early 2025, accusing him of failing to disclose his increased holdings within 10 calendar days, as required, before acquiring shares of the social media platform Twitter in 2022. This allowed Musk to continue buying Twitter shares at a low price, thereby harming the interests of other investors. The SEC believes Musk's actions artificially suppressed the stock price, causing him to pay at least $150 million less during the Twitter acquisition process. Ultimately, Musk completed the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October 2022 and renamed it X the following year.