The Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to settle a lawsuit it filed against Elon Musk last year that accused the world’s wealthiest person of violating securities law in the run-up to his purchase of Twitter.
Filings on Monday, signed by attorneys representing the SEC and Musk, said that Musk’s revocable trust would pay a civil penalty of $1.5 million to the commission as part of the settlement. The settlement still needs sign-off by the judge presiding over the case.
Alex Spiro, an attorney for Musk, said the result vindicated his client, writing in a statement that, “A trust vehicle has agreed to a small fine for being late on one filing.”
The SEC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk, who is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, purchased Twitter for $44 billion in a leveraged buyout in late 2022. Musk later changed the name to X before merging it with his artificial intelligence company, xAI, and then with SpaceX earlier this year. According to Forbes, Musk has a net worth of roughly $790 billion.
