Elon Musk Under Federal Investigation Over $44 Billion Twitter Deal

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is currently under investigation for “conduct” by federal authorities due to the $44 billion takeover deal he made with Twitter, the social networking company said in a court filing that was made public on Thursday.

According to Twitter's filings, the company has been requesting documents related to the investigations for months, but to no avail. As a result, the company has decided to approach a Delaware judge, ordering Musk's attorneys to turn over the requested documents.

'Through counsel, he has exchanged substantive correspondence with those authorities concerning their investigations,' Twitter wrote. 'We want those documents, because they bear upon key issues in this litigation.

Musk's attorneys also provided a 'privilege log' created by Musk's law firm back in September, recognizing documents to be withdrawn from revelation. Twitter said that the 'privilege log' included drafts of an email to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on May 13 and a slide presentation to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

“This game of ‘hide the ball’ must end, ' the company said in the court filing.

It seems that the SEC had already called Musk's responses about his acquisition of the company into question. The SEC asked Musk in April regardless of whether his 9% Twitter stake disclosure had been late and the reason it stated that he intended to be a passive shareholder. Musk later corrected his disclosure to confirm that he was actually an active investor.

In a letter sent in June, the SEC questioned Musk if he should have amended his public filing to reflect his actual intent to suspend or give up the deal.

The SEC and FTC did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

According to Alex Spiro, one of Musk's attorneys, The court filing made public by Twitter was a 'misdirection... It is Twitter's executives that are under federal investigation.'

Spiro's statement received no response from Twitter. When asked about the nature of the investigation into Musk in press releases, it also declined to comment.

The filing comes as the months-long debacle of Musk's planned Twitter acquisition keeps going, in which the Tesla CEO proposed a takeover, backed out of the deal, and was later held liable by Twitter to keep his word.