Elon Musk has settled a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil lawsuit over his late disclosure of Twitter stock purchases in 2022. A trust in Musk’s name will pay a $1.5 million penalty, the largest ever recorded for this specific type of disclosure violation. Musk did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
The SEC filed the lawsuit in January 2025, alleging Musk waited 11 days past the legal deadline to reveal he had crossed the 5% ownership threshold in Twitter during late March and early April 2022. The regulator claimed this delay allowed Musk to continue buying shares before the market could react, accumulating over $500 million worth of Twitter stock and ultimately revealing a 9.2% stake. The SEC argued he saved around $150 million by purchasing at lower prices, though the settlement does not require him to repay that amount.
The agreement was disclosed on May 4, 2026, in Washington, D.C. federal court, and still needs judicial approval. Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said his client has been “cleared of all issues related to the late filing of forms in the Twitter acquisition.” The settlement ends one part of the legal saga around Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, now X, but he still faces a separate shareholder case linked to comments about fake accounts, where a jury found him liable in March 2026.
The $1.5 million fine is negligible for Musk, whose net worth Forbes estimates at $789.9 billion. Tesla stock dipped 0.16% in pre-market trading and is down about 13% year-to-date.
