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Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has suddenly become Twitter's largest stockholder

Following questions about Twitter's commitment to free speech, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bought a 9.2 percent stake in the company to become its largest shareholder.

Musk bought 73.5 million shares worth $2.9 billion on Friday, but it's not clear what he plans to do with them. Even though Tesla CEO Elon Musk has more than 80 million Twitter followers and posts there often, he has recently raised questions about free speech on Twitter and whether the platform is hurting democracy, which he says is not true.

Monday, a regulatory filing said that Musk is an investor who wants to keep his buying and selling of shares to a minimum.

As a CEO, he has also thought about starting a rival social media network, and experts aren't sure how long he would stay on the sidelines.

If this passive stake is the start of more talks with the Twitter board and management, it could lead to an active stake and a more aggressive ownership role for Twitter, which is what we would expect to happen." "Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives told his clients about the news in a note that came out early on Monday.

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image:.sfgate

Twitter's stock jumped 20% before the opening bell on Monday, which was a good start.

Musk told his more than 80 million followers on Twitter that he was "thinking very hard" about what he should do about the electric cars "In the past, he has been in disagreement with financial regulators about how he used Twitter.

During this time, he bought Twitter stock. Musk and US securities regulators are in a bitter fight over whether he can post on Twitter. First Amendment: The lawyer for Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is breaking the First Amendment rights of the company's CEO.

This agreement was made in October of 2018 between Musk and Tesla. Musk and Tesla agreed to pay $40 million in civil fines and to have Musk's tweets approved by the company's lawyer after he tweeted that he had the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share.

Funding for the electric car company wasn't yet in place, but Tesla's stock price went up. The settlement called for changes in how the company is run, including the ouster of Musk as board chairman and the approval of his tweets before they are sent. With his posts, the SEC says that Musk was manipulating the stock price.

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The SEC said that it is looking into Musk's Nov. 6, 2021 tweets in which he asked his followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stake. The commission said that while it was looking into whether Musk and Tesla were following the rules they agreed to in 2018, it sent administrative subpoenas.

The commission is also looking into whether Tesla told the public in public filings with the agency that it obeyed the rules.

The commission says that the subpoenas were legal, and that Musk isn't following the correct legal process to fight them. Melissa Armstrong, an attorney for the SEC, said that Musk's challenge was "frivolous." She also said that Musk and Tesla agreed to have Musk's tweets approved by other Tesla employees before he sent them.

As Armstrong wrote, "Courts have long agreed that "congress has given the SEC broad authority to investigate possible violations of federal securities laws, as well as to demand the production of relevant evidence."

This is what Musk's lawyer wants. He says the SEC is harassing him and violating his First Amendment rights, and he wants to throw out the settlement.

Musk asked a judge in March to overturn a subpoena from the SEC and to throw out a settlement agreement that Musk had agreed to. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, said that the SEC has used the court agreement "to trample on Mr. Musk's First Amendment rights and to put restrictions on his speech in the past."

The SEC responded in court, saying that it has the right to ask Tesla and CEO Elon Musk about his tweets, and that Musk's move to throw out the settlement isn't valid.

The subpoenas, which were issued under seal, came from a formal order by the commission that said they could do the investigation. Request all written communications about the tweets sent on Nov. 6. They also want to know if the tweets were shown to Tesla lawyers for their approval before they were sent to the public.

Musk's lawyer, Spiro, wants to hear oral arguments in the case.

Shares in Twitter were revealed by Musk two days after Tesla Inc. reported its first-quarter sales. While the company sold 310,000 cars in the period, the number was a little lower than expected.

In November, Musk started selling off shares of Tesla stock. He said that the money from the sale would go to pay taxes on stock options that he had. It's thought that his tax bill could be between $10 billion and $15 billion This isn't true. Some of the money could have been used to buy a stake in Twitter.

As of now, he's sold more than 15 million stocks worth about $16.4 billion, so far. Musk almost sold 10% of his stock in late December.

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