The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asked Musk
in a letter whether he should have amended his public filing to reflect his
intention to suspend or abandon the deal, according to the June 2 letter made
public on Thursday.
The agency was referring to his May 17 tweet in which he
said the "deal cannot move forward" until Twitter provided more data
about how the company handled fake accounts.
The letter shows the SEC has been tracking Musk's statements
on the blockbuster deal, increasing pressure on the Tesla boss who has been
locked in a feud with the SEC over his tweets about Tesla since 2018. The
agency already has several open probes into Musk, according to court filings
and media reports.
The SEC said in the letter it had inquired about the May 17
tweet with Musk's legal counsel the following day, but had not received a
response more than two weeks later. The SEC added if Musk did not respond, it
may decide to release publicly all correspondence, including the letter.
Musk's lawyers said in a June 7 letter that the tweet did
not require an amendment because Musk's plans for the deal had not changed at
that time.
Musk said on Friday he was terminating the deal because the
social media company had breached multiple provisions of the merger agreement,
although on Tuesday Twitter sued Musk alleging he had broken the terms of the
deal and made misleading statements about its operations.
Securities lawyers said they expected the SEC would
scrutinise Musk's public statements on the deal to assess whether he misled the
market as to his intentions, Reuters reported on Thursday.
In April, the SEC asked Musk whether the disclosure of his
Twitter stake was late and why it indicated that he intended to be a passive
shareholder. Musk later refiled the disclosure to indicate he was an active
investor. © Reuters
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