SEC Settles Lawsuit Over Elon Musk Twitter Share Purchases for $1.5 Million

SEC to Settle Lawsuit Against Elon Musk Over Twitter Share Purchases

The Securities and Exchange Commission is moving to settle a lawsuit against Elon Musk over allegations that he failed to timely disclose his purchase of shares in Twitter in 2022 as he took control of the social-media network he later renamed X.

Musk’s family trust would pay a $1.5 million fine to resolve the SEC’s claims, according to a court filing on Monday. The penalty is a steep discount from the amount regulators sought when they filed the case at the end of the Biden administration. At the time, regulators wanted Musk to pay back money he allegedly saved by delaying notice of his stock purchases. The settlement requires court approval.

The SEC filed the case against Musk days before President Trump began his second term and Musk assumed a role in the president’s administration as the leader of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency. Musk and Trump later fell out, trading barbs and insults, and Musk walked away from his involvement in Washington.

The decision underscores the SEC’s shift away from aggressive enforcement under the Trump administration. It also marks a shift in its relations with Musk, who has a long history of feuding with the agency. Musk paid a $20 million fine in 2018 to settle an SEC lawsuit over statements he made on social media about Tesla, the electric-vehicle maker where he is chief executive.

SEC Monitoring Fraud Risks in Private Credit as Defaults Rise, Atkins Says

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is “carefully monitoring” fraud and manipulation in the private credit industry amid a rise in default rates, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said Monday at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles. […]

There have been recent signs of stress in the roughly $2 trillion private credit market, with rising default rates at major private credit funds. Many large creditors defaulted on their debts in the past year, according to an analysis by JPMorgan Asset Management, and accounting fraud has been alleged in many of those cases.

Overall, businesses that borrowed from private credit defaulted at a record 9.5% rate in 2025, according to credit rating firm Fitch Ratings.

The growing risk to private credit comes amid the Trump administration’s push to increase investment in private markets. In March, Treasury released its proposed rule to “democratize” access to private markets in 401(k) retirement plans, following an executive order by President Donald Trump.

Play-money casinos

“Maybe the most important paper in economics,” I once wrote, “is the one about how people sometimes give themselves painful electric shocks just because that is an option that’s available to them.” They should teach that paper on the first day of Evil Business School. It might give you ideas for business models. One business model is: I give you something of value, and in exchange you give me money. This is probably the most common business model, and the most socially beneficial, but the problem with it from my perspective is that it is a lot of work for me to give you something of value.

Another business model is: I promise to give you something of value, and in exchange you give me money, and then I don’t give you anything of value. I talk about this model a lot around here — loosely speaking it is called “fraud” — but it has some big downsides for me too. For one thing, it’s a fair amount of work for me to trick you into giving me your money. Plus I might go to jail, etc.

A third business model is: I promise you something worthless, and in exchange you give me money. I suppose I talk about this model a lot around here too. It is called “crypto,” ahahahahahahahaha, no, kidding, sort of. I mean. If I can create some tokens that cost me nothing, and that promise you nothing, and then I can sell them to you for real dollars without technically lying to you, that’s a good business for me. What is it for you? Well. It’s an option that is available to you. If you’re sitting around, bored, thinking “you know what I could go for right now is a painful electric shock,” maybe you’ll buy my worthless tokens?

Rare Securities Class Action Lawsuit Trial Results in Defense Verdict

In a rare trial in a securities class action lawsuit, a federal jury has ruled that hedge fund Armistice Capital and certain of its executives had not, as the plaintiffs alleged, committed insider trading or engaged in a pump-and-dump scheme in selling over $200 million in vaccine company Vaxart stock during the COVID-19 pandemic. The jury specifically held that the plaintiffs had not proven that the defendants had engaged in a scheme to defraud and had not proven their insider trading allegations.

Desiree Fixler Blew the Whistle on Deutsche Bank to the SEC. Her Award: $0

Desiree Fixler was the kind of Wall Street insider who regulators hoped to recruit by paying whistleblowers to tell them about wrongdoing.

She had been an executive at Deutsche Bank involved with products branded as ESG, a term that appealed to investors worried about environmental, social and corporate-governance risks. She went public with claims the bank didn’t adhere to its goal of fusing ESG into all investment decisions and became a witness for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which fined the bank’s asset-management arm $19 million in 2023.

Whistleblowers can receive millions of dollars for their work on an SEC case, netting between 10% and 30% of the fines collected. But Fixler learned last month that her reward was zero. The regulator denied her application, saying investigators first learned about her claims from the news media, instead of her going to the SEC first.

“The SEC broke its own rules,” said Fixler, who on Monday is appealing the rejection in federal court. “I worked with them for two years, and then they denied me the award for the case I built.”