The SEC sues Musk, forcing him to testify about last year's acquisition of Twitter.

According to the Zhongtong Finance APP, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Tesla (TSLA.US) CEO Elon Musk on Thursday, attempting to compel him to testify about the acquisition of Twitter last year.

Lawyers representing the SEC filed a complaint in the Northern District of California, stating that Musk failed to appear in court as required by the subpoena on September 15. The lawyers stated that the subpoena was served in May 2023.

The SEC stated that this investigation is related to whether securities fraud was committed when Musk purchased Twitter stock last year. Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter in October, with the transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Twitter has since been renamed X.

In the complaint, the lawyers wrote, "Musk has persistently refused to comply with the SEC's administrative subpoena, which has hindered and delayed the SEC staff's investigation to determine whether federal securities laws have been violated. Therefore, the SEC now requests the court to compel Musk to testify."

The SEC stated that it had attempted to find a mutually agreed time and place to meet with Musk, including proposing a meeting at the SEC office in Fort Worth, Texas, which is the "closest SEC office" to Musk's current residence in the Austin area. Multiple dates in October and November of this year were proposed by both parties.

The lawsuit stated, "These good-faith efforts were met with Musk's outright refusal to testify."

Lawyers for the SEC claimed that Musk's refusal to comply with the subpoena was due to "several false objections, including objections to San Francisco as an appropriate place for testimony." Musk had not previously objected to this location.

In addition, SEC lawyers also claimed that Musk believed the commission was using the subpoena to "harass" him, and therefore he decided not to comply. Musk also claimed that Walter Isaacson's recently published biography of him may contain "new information related to this matter" as another reason for not attending the testimony.

The lawyers wrote in the legal documents, "The publication of Musk's biography is not a valid basis for him to avoid compliance with a lawfully issued investigative subpoena. In any case, Musk initially refused to comply with the subpoena and has now given his lawyers sufficient time to review any relevant information in the biography, so this objection is now irrelevant and legally insufficient from the outset."

In a statement, the SEC stated that its "staff is continuing to investigate the facts and has not reached any conclusions as to whether any individuals or entities have violated federal securities laws."