Outgoing Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has threatened to press charges against Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk if he does not comply with a monetary demand.
The billionaire entrepreneur posted a letter that showed he could face charges that date back to his purchase of Twitter, now known as X, in 2022 with the caption, “Oh Gary, how could you do this to me?”
A letter from Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, to Gensler said that the X boss had been informed that he had to “agree within 48 hours to either accept a monetary payment or face charges on numerous counts.”
The attorney said that the demand was regarding “certain purchases, sales and disclosures of Twitter shares” and was another in a long line of what he said was “more than six years of harassment of Mr. Musk by the Commission.”
“We demand to know who directed these actions — whether it was you or the White House,” he said in the letter.
The SEC responded to the CEO’s claims in a message to The New York Post.
“It is the policy of the SEC to conduct investigations on a confidential basis to preserve the integrity of its investigative process,” it said. “The SEC therefore does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation.”
Earlier this month a CNN panel was stunned by how the Space X CEO’s net worth has grown since President-elect Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris.
The segment began with the pair discussing Musk’s appointment by President-elect Donald Trump, along with business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, to focus on cutting wasteful government spending, potentially reducing the federal workforce and even recommending the elimination of entire federal agencies with the aim of dramatically reducing the $36.1 trillion national debt.
“Yeah, look, here‘s something you don‘t know,” analyst Harry Enten began. “How much government waste and just government spending errors, payment errors over the last 20 years? My goodness, gracious, look at that. It’s $2.7 trillion since 2003. How about in the last year? It was $236 billion. Now, correcting for those errors is easier said than done, but there is no doubt that there‘s government waste and government waste that everyone can agree upon.”
“That‘s right,” Burnett agreed. “And I understand right, the getting rid of it, fixing it, that‘s a separate thing. But just being able to acknowledge that it‘s there and putting numbers on it is crucial. So, as Musk wants to cut, cut, cut, obviously, from the federal government and he wants to cut federal employees as well, he‘s made that clear, his bottom line actually has been going up recently. Just how rich is he right now?”
“To quote Jackie Wilson, his wealth becomes higher and higher,” Enten said, seemingly veering off-topic. “I mean, my goodness gracious, over the last year and since Election Day, look at these numbers — a year ago, according to Bloomberg‘s billionaire index, it was $222 billion, on Election Day, it was $264 billion. Just in the last month, holy Toledo, nearly $100 billion richer Elon Musk is now than he was a month ago. I think it‘s $89 billion, as you‘re doing the math on your calculator.”
“I‘m just — yeah, 35% increase. I was just quickly doing that. I was doing the increase,” Burnett responded. “Okay, that‘s incredible. I mean, a return anybody would look for, go ahead and annualize that one. Okay, but this is after a judge again struck down a $100 billion pay package that Musk wanted. I don’t know why I‘m laughing. It‘s just sort of the numbers become almost, you know — “
“Comical,” Enten interjected.
“Yes. The vast majority of his wealth, though, he‘s got rockets. He‘s got — he‘s got other things,” the host added. “But it still comes from Tesla, right?”
“Yeah, it absolutely comes from Tesla,” the analyst replied. “And just look at the growth in the Tesla stock over the last year. I mean, my God, look at this, 49% up. Compare that to the baseline, the S&P 500 is only up 32%. And Apple, of course, a great stock, only up 28%. The bottom line is Tesla and big corp, because of Elon Musk, has been a massively successful stock.”
“Massively,” echoed Burnett.
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