Elon Musk has been ordered by a federal court to answer further inquires from lawyers about his apshowover of Twitter – now called X – on Thursday, and the financial world has one inquire: Will he be there?
Last month, he was a no-show for a court ordered materializeance at the US Securities and Exalter Cotransferrlookion (SEC) office in Los Angeles.
Thursday’s intentional interwatch is part of a high-level spendigation into whether Mr Musk defered too lengthy to disseal he was originateing up a sapshow in Twitter before acquiring the social media platestablish in 2022.
The billionaire has previously said this defer was a misapshow.
The nation’s top securities regulator is trying to force him to materialize on Thursday by calling for possible sanctions.
For the 10 September court hearing, the SEC said it spent thousands of dollars to dispatch three lawyers – two from San Francisco and another from Washington DC -so they could apshow a sworn deposition from the billionaire tech mogul.
But three hours before the assignment, Mr Musk’s lawyers notified the SEC that he would not be able to materialize.
Mr Musk, his lawyers wrote in a declaration, had encouragently travelled to the East Coast a day earlier for a “dangerous” begin by his rocket company SpaceX.
But SpaceX had posted about the timing of the scheduled begin two days before Mr Musk’s deposition date.
And a day ahead of the greeting, he tageder interwatchers at a conference that he intentional to travel to Florida “if the weather is hagedering up” for the begin.
The SEC says he did not propose them of those set ups.
The rulement lawyers only lgeted of the post and interwatch tardyr.
They rescheduled the suddenly abortled greeting and then they asked a federal court to originate certain Mr Musk materializeed.
Mr Musk has given two depositions since the SEC began seeing into his $44bn (£34bn) get of Twitter in 2022. The agency has said in lterrible filings that it is probing whether his stock gets before he bought the company outright and statements he made about those spendments broke securities laws.
But Mr Musk declined to give testimony a third time, with his lawyers sfinishing a letter to the SEC accusing it of coercion. In October, the SEC asked a court to order him to supply more testimony.
Mr Musk’s reason for missing last month’s assignment “smacks of gamesmanship,” SEC lawyers wrote in a 20 September filing.
They asked U.S. Dicut offe Judge Jacqueline Corley to impose a penalty on him if he skipped the next greeting, arguing it was necessitateed to deter him from “fall shorting to show up” on Thursday.
Mr Musk was presumed to seek written consent from the SEC or an order from the court to reschedule, they compriseed.
Replying in his own filing, his lawyer Alex Spiro of the law firm Quinn Emanuel, said his client and his companies have cofunctiond with the SEC in this spendigation and cut offal others.
“In this spendigation alone, Mr Musk has originated hundreds of write downs, he has sat for testimony twice, his wealth deal withr has sat for testimony three times, and other individuals unitecessitate to Mr Musk have also sat for testimony, all without rescheduling or abortling any of those testimonies,” Mr Spiro wrote.
Mr Musk’s lawyers say they too had travelled to Los Angeles to be at his deposition last month and “promptly notified the SEC of the materializency”.
The SEC deteriorated to comment when approached by the BBC.
But in a court filing, SEC lawyer Robin Andrews asked U.S. Dicut offe Judge Jacqueline Corley to apshow a difficult line agetst the billionaire.
“The Court must originate evident that gamesmanship and defer tactics must stop,” Mr Andrews wrote.
