Elon Musk has resolved a civil lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concerning the timing of his 2022 Twitter stock disclosure. A trust associated with Musk agreed to pay a $1.5 million penalty but does not admit any wrongdoing. The settlement still requires judicial approval.
The agreement, submitted to a federal court in Washington, D.C., on May 4, 2026, concludes one SEC case stemming from Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now known as X. The SEC had alleged that Musk delayed reporting his purchase of more than 5% of Twitter’s shares in 2022 by 11 days, allowing him to acquire additional shares at lower prices before the market learned of his stake. The regulator estimated that this delay saved Musk about $150 million, but under the settlement, he will not be required to return that amount.
Musk’s legal team argued that the delay was unintentional. Attorney Alex Spiro stated that Musk has been exonerated regarding the late filing issues, consistent with their earlier assertions. However, this settlement does not resolve all legal matters tied to the Twitter deal. Musk still faces a separate shareholder lawsuit related to his comments during the buyout process. In that case, shareholders claimed that Musk’s remarks about fake and spam accounts negatively impacted Twitter’s share price. A San Francisco jury found Musk liable on March 20, 2026, and he is currently seeking to overturn the verdict or obtain a new trial.
This latest settlement follows Musk’s previous conflict with the SEC over Tesla. In 2018, the SEC charged him for claiming he had secured funding to take Tesla private. He settled that case and paid a $20 million fine. Meanwhile, X has been developing a crypto scam safety feature that would lock accounts on their first mention of cryptocurrency, requiring additional verification before posting. This move comes after account hijacking campaigns used trusted profiles to promote scam tokens.