U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick walks with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the South Lawn, at the White House, in Washington D.C. U.S., March 14, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a top adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, was issued a summons in connection with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against him, a court filing on Thursday showed.
A process server gave the civil summons and other documents on March 14 to a security guard at the Brownsville, Texas, headquarters of SpaceX, the space technology company of which Musk is CEO, the filing said. An answer is due on April 4, according to the docket. The SEC in January accused Musk of waiting too long to disclose in 2022 that he had amassed a large stake in Twitter, the social media company he later bought and renamed X.
The regulator said Musk violated federal securities law by waiting 11 days too long to disclose his initial purchase of 5% of Twitter’s common shares.
An SEC rule requires investors to disclose within 10 calendar days — or by March 24, 2022, in Musk’s case — when they cross a 5% ownership threshold.
Musk and his lawyer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment.
