A judge has approved a $1.5 million fine levied against Elon Musk to settle a US Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit despite there being “significant misrepresentations” about it.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknan said her court would accept the settlement, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, which cited him court opinion.
Sooknan’s approval settles a lawsuit filed by the SEC against Musk in early 2025 over how the billionaire handled his acquisition of the social network platform formerly known as Twitter. The lawsuit, which was filed just days before Donald Trump took office, revolves around Musk’s failure to timely disclose to public investors about his increasing stake in the company in 2022.
The SEC argued that the fact that Musk did not initially disclose his stake “ultimately resulted in a substantial savings to him of $150 million.”
In May, Musk reached an agreement The SEC stipulated that a trust in Musk’s name would be liable to pay a $1.5 million fine without admitting wrongdoing.
Sooknanan first interrogated Was Musk getting “special treatment” from the Trump administration? Musk previously helped finance Trump’s campaign during the 2024 presidential race.
In his opinion, Sooknan said that his court was “limited to evaluating whether the proposed consent decree meets minimum standards of fairness and reasonableness, or whether instead”[s] A mockery of the judicial power.”
“Although the Court has considerable doubts about the settlement reached in this case, it cannot say
The settlement meets that high bar,” Sooknanen wrote.
