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Lawyers for the billionaire appeared in a San Francisco
courtroom on Thursday to urge U.S. District Judge Jacqueline
Scott Corley to decide against the SEC, which is seeking to
force Musk to testify as part of its probe into his 2022
purchase of social media giant Twitter. Another judge previously
ruled in favor of the agency.
The SEC sued Musk in October to compel the Tesla and SpaceX CEO
to testify after he refused to attend a September interview for
the investigation, saying the SEC was trying to "harass" him
with a number of subpoenas.
The judge did not issue a decision on Thursday.
"I don't think that the deposition subpoena is unreasonable.
What I don't know is why does the deposition have to be at an
SEC office?" Corley said at a hearing at the United States
District Court for the Northern District of California.
The investigation concerns whether Musk broke federal securities
laws in 2022 when he bought stock in Twitter, which he later
renamed X. It is also reviewing statements and SEC filings he
made in relation to the deal, the agency has previously said.
In 2022, Musk supplied the SEC with documents for its probe and
also testified via videoconference for two half-day sessions in
July of that year, the SEC has said in court documents. Agency
lawyers have said they have more questions for Musk after
receiving new documents, and had sought additional testimony.
Musk's lawyer, Rachel Frank, an associate with Quinn Emanuel
Urquhart & Sullivan, on Thursday told the judge the additional
testimony would be a "burden" for Musk and take him away from
obligations to shareholders.
The judge asked whether Musk should be exempt from securities
laws and further investigations just because he is a "very busy
person" who is running multiple companies.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thursday's face-off is the latest dispute in a years-long feud
between Musk and the top U.S. markets regulator, dating back to
2018 when he tweeted that he had "funding secured" to take the
electric carmaker private.
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco and Chris Prentice in
New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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