Elon Musk settled securities fraud charges brought against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year, but he is not done deriding the agency.
"I want to be clear: I do not respect the SEC," he told Lesley Stahl during an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes," which aired Sunday. Musk said he is abiding by the terms of his settlement deal "because I respect the justice system." But he reiterated that there is no love lost between him and the SEC.
In the fall, Musk agreed to a court-approved deal with the SEC in order to settle charges over his controversial tweet in August about his plans to take Tesla private. The settlement stipulated that Musk receive pre-approval for any social media posts containing information that is "material" to Tesla shareholders. At the time, the electric carmaker said it would establish a board committee to oversee its CEO's posts.
But the SEC has since found fault with Musk's tweeting. In late February, the commission filed a motion asking a federal judge to hold Musk in contempt for violating the terms of the settlement.
[snip]
"The pre-approval requirement was designed to protect against reckless conduct by Musk going forward," the agency said. "It is therefore stunning to learn that, at the time of filing of the [contempt] motion, Musk had not sought pre-approval for a single one of the numerous tweets about Tesla he published in the months since the court-ordered pre-approval policy went into effect."
I guess he doesn't respect the justice system all that much, after all.