The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) put Elon Musk under scrutiny last month over a tweet in which he hinted at a likely decision to end his planned takeover of Twitter due to inaccurate spam figures.
In a letter to Musk dated June 2, released on Thursday, the SEC asked the billionaire whether he should have amended his public filing to indicate his intention to suspend or abandon the deal.
In response, Musk’s lawyers said in a June 7 letter that the tweet did not need to be changed because Musk’s plans for the deal had not changed at that time.
Security lawyers said the SEC’s probe was necessary to determine whether Musk’s public statements misled the market about his intentions.
While Musk announced that he would not pursue the deal in June, the billionaire announced on Friday that he would terminate the deal for the reasons he cited in the original suspension.
In terminating the deal, Musk accused Twitter of violating several provisions of the merger agreement. Following Musk’s announcement, Twitter sued the billionaire in a Delaware business court to force him to complete the deal.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.