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SEC Fires Back at Musk Over His Defense of Unvetted Tesla Tweets

The agency on Monday reiterated its request that the judge find Musk in contempt of court.

SEC Fires Back at Musk Over His Defense of Unvetted Tesla Tweets
Elon Musk, billionaire, co-founder and chief executive officer of Tesla Motors. (Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fired back at Elon Musk’s assertion of his constitutional right to free speech in his defense to the regulator’s claims that a pair of tweets he sent last month about Tesla Inc. violated restrictions on his social-media posts.

In a court filing Monday supporting a request that a judge hold Musk in contempt of court, the SEC said that Tesla’s chief executive “voluntarily waived” his First Amendment rights when the judge last year ordered him to “obtain pre-approval of written communications that contain or reasonably could contain material information” about Tesla.

To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net

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