Elon Musk agrees to have tweets pre-approved by lawyer

By Emily Mee, news reporter

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has agreed to have his social media posts regarding the car maker pre-approved by an expert, in order to settle a dispute over his tweeting.

The tech entrepreneur reached an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which brought a case alleging he violated a previous settlement requiring his tweets to be approved by a lawyer.

Under the agreement, Mr Musk must get approval from a Tesla-employed lawyer before tweeting about a range of topics related to the car maker.

The deal must now be approved by US District Judge Alison Nathan and would mean Mr Musk could no longer be held in contempt.

A settlement was originally reached in September last year after the Tesla CEO tweeted he had secured funding to take the company private at $420 (£325) a share, sending stock on a wild ride.

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However Mr Musk later said he would not be taking the company private and regulators found he had lied about having the money to pull off the deal.

The SEC said investors who had bought stock after seeing the tweet were hurt by the inaccurate information.

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Following the original settlement, the SEC claimed a tweet sent by Mr Musk on 19 February about Tesla vehicle production was not approved by the company's "disclosure counsel" and had not been seen by his lawyer.

Lawyers representing the Tesla CEO argued his tweet – which said the company would produce about 500,000 vehicles this year – did not need approval because it was not new information that would be meaningful to investors.