Elon Musk, the billionaire who has tangled repeatedly with the Securities and Exchange Commission, urged the US Supreme Court to restrict the Wall Street regulator’s ability to press cases before its in-house judges.
(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk, the billionaire who has tangled repeatedly with the Securities and Exchange Commission, urged the US Supreme Court to restrict the Wall Street regulator’s ability to press cases before its in-house judges.
The Tesla Inc. chief executive and X Corp. owner joined other business leaders including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban on a brief filed Wednesday in a case that the Biden administration says could have sweeping consequences across the government.
The central issue is whether those facing SEC complaints have a constitutional right to go before a federal jury, rather than one of the commission’s administrative law judges. Critics say the SEC has an unfair advantage when litigating in house.
In that setting, “the SEC itself is the sole fact finder and determines a respondent’s liability and punishment without the involvement of a jury,” Musk and his counterparts argued. “Such proceedings contravene the protections guaranteed to litigants by the United States.”
Musk, the world’s richest person, once called the SEC the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission.” The commission is currently investigating Musk’s purchase of Twitter Inc. shares ahead of his takeover of the social media platform, which he later renamed X.
The regulator has also been probing Musk’s role in shaping Tesla’s self-driving car claims. SEC officials are weighing whether Musk may have inappropriately made forward-looking statements, Bloomberg News reported in January.
Musk in 2018 agreed to pay a $20 million fine, give up his chairmanship at Tesla, and clear future tweets about the automaker with an internal monitor, after the SEC investigated his comments about planning to take the company private.
The case, which the court will hear Nov. 29, is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, 22-859.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.