Elon Musk's challenge to SEC agreement denied by US Supreme Court

Earlier this week, the United States Supreme Court denied Tesla CEO Elon Musk's challenge an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that mandates a lawyer to review his social media posts, NBC News reported.

The rejection follows a ruling by the second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in favour of the government agency.

The 52-year-old tech billionaire has accused the SEC of unlawfully imposing conditions on his “Twitter sitter” provision, which limited his ability to comment on Tesla-related issues.

He made this claim after his 2022 acquisition of the social media platform, which has now been renamed X.

The SEC fired shots at Musk for posting "materially false and misleading" tweets in 2018, claiming he secured funding for Tesla’s private venture, which initially caused the company’s shares to surge and was deemed a violation of securities law by the SEC.

Musk agreed to settle a civil securities action brought by the SEC and signed off on the social media provision.

In a separate civil case, a jury last year found that Musk was not liable for misleading investors.

Musk now claims that the limits on his speech are unconstitutional and he was coerced into agreeing to it.

According to the court papers by his lawyers, the SEC has waged an "ongoing campaign" against Musk.

The provision "restricts Mr Musk’s speech even when truthful and accurate. It extends to speech not covered by the securities laws and with no relation to the conduct underlying the SEC’s civil action against Mr Musk," the lawyers added.

The SEC states that Musk waived his argument rights when he approved the settlement, and lower courts subsequently rejected his claim.