Elon Musk stands in an elevator to attend the trial in his lawsuit over OpenAI for-profit conversion at a federal courthouse, Oakland, California, April 30, 2026. MANUEL ORBEGOZO / REUTERS
Elon Musk on Monday, May 4, agreed to pay a small amount to end a government lawsuit that accused him of breaking stock market rules when he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter before his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform in 2022. Musk's trust will pay a $1.5 million fine under the deal, which was filed in a Washington federal court and still needs a judge's approval.
The case involves Musk's missing a statutory deadline for notifying regulators as he bought more and more Twitter shares ahead of the takeover.
Musk's attorney Alex Spiro cast the outcome as a vindication, saying his client "has now been cleared of all issues related to the late filing of forms in the Twitter acquisition, as we said from the outset he would be." "A trust vehicle has agreed to a small fine for being late on one filing," Spiro said.
In an email to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Spiro added that the deal with the US government was not a settlement "because he did nothing wrong." "The case against him was dismissed," said Spiro.
