Elon Musk agreed to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit over his delayed disclosure of Twitter stock purchases tied to his 2022 takeover of the platform now known as X.
The settlement, disclosed Monday in Washington, D.C., federal court, will be paid by a trust in Musk’s name and does not require him to admit wrongdoing. Musk also will not have to return the $150 million the SEC alleged he saved by delaying the disclosure, Reuters reported.
SEC case ends with reduced penalty
The SEC sued Musk in January 2025, alleging he waited 11 days too long to disclose that he had built an initial 5% stake in Twitter in late March and early April 2022. The regulator said the delay allowed Musk to buy more than $500 million worth of shares at low prices before later disclosing a 9.2% stake.
The agency had requested both a civil fine and repayment of the alleged $150 million benefit. Under the settlement, Musk avoids alleged benefits, while the $1.5 million penalty still requires approval from U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, who rejected Musk’s attempt to dismiss the case in February.
Musk had argued that the delay was unintentional and accused the SEC of targeting him over his speech. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, said Musk had been cleared of issues tied to the late filing.
The SEC settlement winds down another dispute in Musk’s long-running clash with the regulator, which dates back to his 2018 “funding secured” tweet about taking Tesla private.
However, it does not end the legal fallout from the Twitter acquisition, as Musk still faces a separate shareholder case in which a San Francisco jury found him liable over comments about bots and fake accounts during the $44 billion takeover battle.
Musk’s legal troubles extend to OpenAI
Away from the Twitter disclosure case, Musk is also locked in a separate legal battle with OpenAI over the company’s direction and structure.
The AI-related case traces back to Musk’s role in co-founding OpenAI in 2015, when it was launched as a nonprofit research group focused on developing artificial intelligence for the public benefit.
Musk sued OpenAI, President Greg Brockman and CEO Sam Altman in 2024, arguing that the company had drifted from that original mission by building a more commercial structure, a claim OpenAI has rejected as baseless.
The dispute has since moved into federal court, where Musk has testified about OpenAI’s early years, its fundraising needs and its shift toward a for-profit arm.
The latest turn came through court filings showing that Musk contacted Brockman shortly before trial to ask whether a settlement was possible. Brockman responded by suggesting that both sides drop their claims, but the exchange escalated, adding another tense moment to a case that now reaches beyond OpenAI’s structure and into wider questions about AI governance, corporate control and Musk’s own competing ambitions through xAI.