SEC Official Leaving After Playing Key Role in Case Against Musk

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission official whose office played key roles in enforcement actions against Tesla Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes is leaving the agency.

Jina Choi, who has led the San Francisco office since 2013, will step down at the end of November, the SEC said in a statement Thursday. She has been with the agency for 16 years.

“The San Francisco Regional Office brought a series of ground-breaking enforcement actions, including against public and private technology companies in Silicon Valley and their senior officers,” Steven Peikin, co-director of the SEC’s enforcement unit, said in the agency’s statement. “Through these and other actions, Jina has left an enduring stamp on securities enforcement in the San Francisco region.”

The SEC’s settlement with Musk over his August tweets about taking the electric car company private provides a capstone for Choi, who also supervised cases against Holmes over false statements about her medical technology business and Yahoo! Inc. on claims that it misled investors by failing to disclose a massive data breach.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Mott in Washington at gmott1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jesse Westbrook at jwestbrook1@bloomberg.net, Gregory Mott

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