Supreme Court refuses to hear Musk’s challenge to SEC order on Tesla posts

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear Elon Musk’s challenge to a 2018 settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that required lawyers to approve some of the billionaire’s public posts about Tesla.

The Tesla CEO filed an appeal with the Supreme Court in December, arguing that the settlement is a “prior restraint” on his First Amendment speech rights and is unconstitutional.

“The pre-approval provision in Mr. Musk’s consent decree, as incorporated in the amended final judgment, is a quintessential prior restraint that the law prohibits. This restricts Mr. Musk’s speech, even when truthful and accurate,” his lawyers argued in their petition to the high court.

“It chills Mr. Musk’s speech through the endless threat of contempt, fines, or even imprisonment for otherwise protected speech if it is not pre-approved to the satisfaction of the SEC or a court,” they added.

The 2018 settlement stems from allegations that Musk was influencing Tesla’s shares with social media posts, specifically a tweet about his intentions to take Tesla private, which caused the company’s shares to rise.

In 2022, Musk asked a lower court to modify or terminate the agreement, arguing that it was unconstitutional and that he had been abused by the SEC to improperly police his speech.

A federal appeals court rejected his challenge last May, saying it found “no evidence supporting Musk’s claim that the SEC used the consent decree to conduct bad faith and harassing investigations into his protected speech.”