A February letter from Musk attorney Alex Spiro said the terms of the consent decree amounted to “unconstitutional” infringement of his free-speech rights.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed those claims, writing that the court saw “no evidence to support Musk’s contention that the SEC has used the consent decree to conduct bad-faith, harassing investigations of his protected speech.”
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The court added that if Musk had concerns about SEC oversight over his “right to tweet without even limited internal oversight,” he could have defended himself against the SEC’s charges or negotiated a different settlement. “But he chose not to do so,” the court emphasized.
“Having made that choice,” the court concluded, Musk’s team couldn’t argue “to collaterally reopen a final judgment merely because he has now changed his mind.”
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‘Enforcement 40’ for 2020
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