Elon Musk is being sued by a Twitter shareholder after he failed to announce his recent 9.2% stock acquisition sufficiently promptly.
US federal trade law requires that investors inform the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) within 10 days when they purchase a 5% stake in a company. It seems Musk took three weeks.
By extending the notice period, Musk was able to profit from the bump in Twitter’s stock price when news emerged of his investment, apparently to the tune of $156 million, while his fellow Twitter investors remained oblivious.
This has resulted in a class action lawsuit being filed against Musk for his seemingly illegal conduct.
It’s been quite an eventful few weeks for the Tesla CEO and Space X head honcho. First he took everyone by surprise in becoming the biggest Twitter shareholder by purchasing a 9.2% stake worth $2.9 billion.
Then, after issuing a casual poll on whether Twitter should add an edit button – seemingly forcing the company to respond by promising to implement said feature – news emerged that he would be joining the board, seemingly under the proviso that he halt his stock acquisition at 15%.
News then emerged that Musk wouldn’t be joining the Twitter board after all. According to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, Musk had changed his mind, and it was all “for the best.”
If you had thought that was going to be the end to this deeply weird back and forth, well, you clearly haven’t been paying much attention to Musk’s MO. From becoming the most powerful force in the company to being sued by investors in less than a month is classic Elon Musk.