Supreme Court Denies Musk Challenge to SEC Over Free Speech

Elon Musk was just treated rather rudely by the Supreme Court.

Musk was hoping to challenge SEC restrictions regarding his speech on X.

Unfortunately for Musk, his challenge was denied, so he will have to find another way to fight the man.

Twitter Sitter

According to Musk, the SEC has embarked on an “ongoing campaign” that he has dubbed the “Twitter Sitter.”

The agency slapped Musk with a provision after he started to discuss Tesla stock on his profile.

Musk, at the time, had noted that he had enough Tesla stock in hand to take the company private.

After Musk made the statement, people started to grab shares of Tesla stock, causing the stock to fly through the roof.

The SEC went after Musk, claiming that his statements were “materially false and misleading.”

Musk eventually settled a civil lawsuit that was brought against him by the SEC, which included the monitoring agreement.

Musk now claims he was coerced into signing the agreement and that it violates his free speech, with his lawyers arguing, “It extends to speech not covered by the securities laws and with no relation to the conduct underlying the SEC’s civil action against Mr. Musk.”

Due to that agreement, Musk now must get prior approval before posting on X on certain subjects, which he says violated his right to free speech.

Musk lost his initial appeal, with the appellate court ruling, “We see no evidence to support Musk’s contention that the SEC has used the consent decree to conduct bad-faith, harassing investigations of his protected speech.

“Had Musk wished to preserve his right to tweet without even limited internal oversight concerning certain Tesla-related topics, he had ‘the right to litigate and defend against the [SEC’s] charges’ or to negotiate a different agreement—but he chose not to do so.”

Musk then went to the Supreme Court for relief, but he was denied, with no justices filing an open dissent in the ruling.