The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been a burden for Tesla CEO Elon Musk to bear, and a recent request to end the agency’s oversight has been denied.
Musk was denied a bid to undo the SEC’s oversight of his Twitter, mandated through an agreement made in 2018, according to Bloomberg.
In addition, a judge in New York denied Musk’s attempts to block an SEC subpoena of Tesla’s public-disclosure controls on Wednesday.
In a written opinion, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan wrote, “Musk cannot now seek to retract the agreement he knowingly and willingly entered by simply bemoaning that he felt like he had to agree to it at the time but now — once the specter of the litigation is a distant memory and his company has become, in his estimation, all but invincible — wishes that he had not.”
It was last month that Musk originally asked the judge to halt SEC oversight of his Twitter, claiming the agency was harassing him and saying the 2018 agreement violated his free speech.
Afterward, Musk began asking his audience whether Twitter rigorously held to free speech principles, even suggesting he might start his own social media.
Not long after that, Musk purchased and later disclosed a 9.2-percent stake in Twitter, before making offers to purchase the social media company outright.
Musk’s 2018 tweet in which he said he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private was ruled false by a federal judge earlier this month.
Just this week, however, Twitter announced it had sold to Musk for $44 billion.
