The regulator said the billionaire had failed to honour subpoenas issued since May.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has initiated legal action against Elon Musk for failing to comply with a subpoena. The financial authority is investigating whether the billionaire violated federal securities laws when he bought Twitter last year.

The SEC said Musk failed to testify last month despite having been served with a subpoena since May. The regulator said Musk's testimony was needed to obtain information relevant to its legitimate investigation.

The SEC filed a request for an order with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in connection with an ongoing investigation into possible violations of the federal securities laws. Musk’s 2022 purchase of Twitter stock and his corresponding statements and SEC filings are under review. The SEC seeks Musk’s testimony to reveal information relevant to its lawful investigation that is not currently in the SEC’s possession.

Notably, Musk failed to comply with the subpoena, as he had agreed to testify at the SEC’s San Francisco regional office on a mutually agreed-upon date in September 2023, having been served with the subpoena in May 2023. Musk did not raise his objection until two days before his scheduled testimony, when he notified the SEC that he would not appear and raised some objections for the first time.

The regulator filed a lawsuit in federal district court to review Musk’s statements and disclosures about stock transactions related to the social media platform. While the SEC continues its fact-finding, its application for an order compelling Musk to comply is still pending before the court.

Musk has ambitious plans for the company, now called X, including turning it into a financial institution. However, he has not clarified whether Twitter’s payments feature could involve cryptocurrency, despite hinting in April 2022 that a Dogecoin payment option could be coming.

As Musk’s intentions for Twitter’s financial transformation come under the spotlight, his unfulfilled promise to the SEC now ties the future of his digital ambitions to an ongoing securities investigation. As such, the broader impact of this development on the tech and financial industries remains to be seen. #SEC  #Twitter