Elon Musk’s feud with SEC is ‘plain stupid,’ says former agency chairman

A former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman had a few choice words for Tesla CEO Elon Musk over his attempts to acquire Twitter and his feud with the regulatory agency.

Harvey Pitt, the former chairman, said Musk is acting like a child when he attacks the agency. Pitt also argued the Twitter board of directors has not handled Musk’s offer properly.

“[Musk] hates the SEC, and that is his constitutional right,” Pitt argued during a Monday segment on Yahoo Finance. “He does not have to like the SEC. But his tactic of thwarting them, attacking them, and so forth is just plain stupid. It doesn’t get anyone anywhere. It’s childish, it’s immature, and it’s narcissistic.”

“I believe he is his own worst enemy,” Pitt added. “[Musk] is obviously a man of great imagination. He has great ideas and concepts. But he needs to stop acting like a child and start acting like an adult. That is the mistake he continues to make continuously with his dealings with the SEC.”

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Musk’s acquisition of Twitter stock may have violated several SEC regulations, Pitt said. The former chairman specifically pointed to Musk’s late filing of his paperwork and claimed the SEC will likely take action.

Before it does anything else, Twitter’s board needs to consider if there are other offers on the table besides Musk’s, Pitt said. However, Pitt said the board’s handling of Musk’s offer shows that it has already made up its mind not to accept it.

“I think what they need to be doing is ascertaining first whether there are other bids available, attempting to make certain that they can provide value for their shareholders, and I think they need to treat the Musk bid more seriously and with more deference,” he said.

Musk has regularly attacked the SEC, claiming it targets him with investigations. Musk referred to the SEC as “b******s” during a Thursday appearance at TED 2022. He described the regulatory agency as the “shortseller enrichment commission” days after a 2018 settlement related to him stepping down as the chairman of Tesla’s board. Others, including fellow billionaire Mark Cuban, have argued that Musk’s attempt to purchase Twitter is him “f***ing with the SEC.”

Musk’s $20 million 2018 settlement requires some oversight of his online activities. According to the settlement, a Tesla lawyer must review all of Musk’s tweets that could affect Tesla stock before he posts them. Tesla has failed to adhere to that requirement, according to a July 2021 ruling. That failure led to Tesla shareholders suing Musk in December 2021, arguing his tweets affected the stock market. Musk filed a request on March 8 to scrap his 2018 settlement with the SEC, claiming the Twitter oversight condition has been “unworkable.”

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Pitt was not the only one to be critical of Twitter’s handling of Musk’s offer. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a Sunday tweet that Twitter’s board is the “dysfunction of the company.”

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