Elon Musk says he bought Twitter to ensure the internet’s horse manure-encrusted town square properly adheres to his standards of “free speech,” but if part of your job is to monitor the constant edgelord doings of the world’s wealthiest man, you’d know the “speech” in question might just entail a good amount of market-manipulating rumors and exaggerations.
On that front, a U.S. district judge unequivocally slapped down the Technoking’s request to cancel part of a 2018 settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that required all Tesla-related tweets first be screened by a company lawyer. “Musk cannot now seek to retract the agreement he knowingly and willingly entered by simply bemoaning that he felt like he had to agree to it at the time,” explained U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in his written opinion. As such, Musk still can’t erroneously tweet things like “funding secured” to take Tesla private — a message that sent the company’s stock value soaring.
