Musk agrees to 2.2 billion won settlement in Twitter late disclosure lawsuit... "Agrees to a small fine"

Musk agrees to 2.2 billion won settlement in Twitter late disclosure lawsuit... "Agrees to a small fine"

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has agreed to settle a lawsuit for $1.5 million (approximately 2.2 billion won) after being accused of belatedly disclosing his stake purchase when acquiring Twitter (now X).

According to the settlement application filed on the 4th (local time) in a U.S. federal court in Washington D.C., the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed to conclude the lawsuit on the condition that Musk's side pays a civil penalty of $1.5 million.

However, the entity paying the fine is not CEO Musk personally, but 'The Elon Musk Revocable Trust dated July 22, 2003', a private trust established by Musk.

CEO Musk also proceeded with the acquisition of Twitter shares under the name of this trust.

If the court approves this settlement, the SEC plans to drop the lawsuit against CEO Musk.

The fine under this settlement is significantly reduced compared to the $200 million initially demanded by the SEC. Furthermore, the settlement did not stipulate the return of illegal profits or other provisions for CEO Musk.

Alex Spiro, representing CEO Musk, said in a statement, "Musk is completely free from the document filing issues related to the Twitter acquisition," and "The trust agreed to pay a small fine for the delayed filing of one document."

However, the settlement stipulates that Musk's side cannot make statements denying the allegations, such as claiming that the contents raised by the SEC in the complaint are not true.

The SEC filed a lawsuit in January 2025, claiming that CEO Musk failed to disclose his acquisition of more than 5% of Twitter's shares within the deadline, causing investors who sold shares unknowingly to suffer losses of more than $150 million.