Elon Musk reveals SEC sent him ‘settlement demand’ after Twitter buyout probe
Elon Musk listens as US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a House Republicans Conference meeting at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill on November 13, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Allison Robbert | Getty Images
The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a “settlement demand” to Elon Musk, the tech billionaire disclosed in a social media post on Thursday.
The post included a copy of a letter sent by Musk’s attorney, Quinn Emanuel Partner Alex Spiro, to SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
The letter said that the federal agency had pressured Musk to agree to a settlement including a fine within 48 hours, or “face charges on numerous counts” regarding “Certain Purchases, Sales and Disclosures of Twitter Shares.”
The SEC has been investigating whether Musk, or anyone else working with him, committed securities fraud in 2022 as the Tesla CEO sold shares in his car company Tesla and shored up a stake in Twitter, ahead of his leveraged buyout of the social network which is now known as X.
“Oh Gary, how could you do this to me?” Musk said in the post he shared on X late Thursday, along with an emoji showing a face holding back tears and a copy of Spiro’s letter.
In another post on Thursday, Musk wrote that he, “Asked @Grok to draw a picture of @GaryGensler. Very flattering, I think!” That post contained an AI-generated image portraying the SEC chair as a snail-like creature wearing a suit.
A person directly familiar with the probe, who asked to remain un-named due to the sensitive nature of the matter, told CNBC that the SEC did send a settlement offer to Musk in recent days, but he was given more than 48 hours to respond.
If the SEC cannot reach a settlement agreement with Musk, this person said, charges would not necessarily follow as a next step. When the agency cannot arrive at a settlement agreement with defendants, it will sometimes issue what’s called a Wells Notice before enforcement staff make recommendations to agency commissioners, who then decide whether or not to file charges.
Gensler, Musk and Spiro did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
Musk’s lawyer argued in his letter that the SEC has engaged in “more than six years of harassment” of Musk via investigative activity, including by reopening an investigation into the billionaire’s health tech venture Neuralink this week.
Spiro also wrote that he had personally been subpoenaed by SEC staff but refused to comply. He accused the agency of an “improperly motivated campaign against Mr. Musk and the individuals and companies associated with him,” and demanded to know whether the White House or the SEC had directed this action against his client.
In 2018, the SEC charged Musk with civil securities fraud after he tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and had “funding secured” to do so. No take-private deal ever materialized.
Musk and Tesla each paid $20 million fines to the agency, and struck a revised settlement agreement that required Musk to temporarily relinquish his role as chairman of the board at Tesla. Since that time, Musk has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the SEC.
The Tesla, SpaceX and X leader also became a Republican mega-donor in recent years, and helped propel President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House.
In July this year, Trump vowed to fire the SEC chairman. After Trump’s election victory, Gensler announced that he would be resigning from his post instead.
In a separate civil lawsuit concerning the Twitter deal, which is a focus of the recent SEC probe, the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System sued Musk accusing him of deliberately concealing his progressive investments in the social network, and intent to buy out the company.
The pension fund’s attorneys argued that Musk, by failing to clearly disclose his investments in and intentions to buy Twitter, had influenced other shareholders’ decisions and put them at a disadvantage.
WATCH: Elon Musk asks court to block OpenAI from converting to a for-profit
The U.S. has halted a technology trade deal with the U.K., after officials in Washington became frustrated with the pace of progress, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
Announced in September during President Donald Trump’s state visit to the U.K., the “technology prosperity deal” is a sweeping agreement aimed at encouraging collaboration between the countries on tech like artificial intelligence, nuclear fusion, and quantum computing.
At the time, Trump said that the deal would “ensure our countries lead the next great technological revolution side by side.” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the agreement was a “generational step change in our relationship with the U.S.” that would deliver “growth, security and opportunity up and down the country.”
Talks were suspended by the U.S. last week, the FT reported, quoting unnamed British officials.
When asked to comment on the report, a U.K. government spokesperson told CNBC: “Our special relationship with the US remains strong and the UK is firmly committed to ensuring the Tech Prosperity Deal delivers opportunity for hardworking people in both countries.”
The agreement would establish AI-enabled research programs in areas including the development of models and datasets in mutual priorities such as AI for biotechnology, precision medicine for cancer and rare and chronic diseases, and fusion energy, the two countries said in September.
It came as the U.K. signed deals totalling £31 billion ($41 billion) with U.S. tech firms like Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and CoreWeave to build out the country’s AI infrastructure. The U.S. is the U.K.’s largest trading partner.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has been approached for comment.
The logo of an Apple Store is seen reflected on the glass exterior of a Samsung flagship store in Shanghai, China Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.
Wang Gang | Feature China | Future Publishing | Getty Images
A shortage of memory chips fueled by artificial intelligence players is likely to cause a price rise in smartphones in 2026 and a drop in shipments, Counterpoint Research said in a note on Tuesday.
Smartphone shipments could fall 2.1% in 2026, according to Counterpoint, versus a previous outlook of flat-to-positive growth.
Shipments do not equate to sales but are a measure of demand as they track the number of devices being sent to sales channels like stores.
Meanwhile, the average selling price of smartphones could jump 6.9% year-on-year in 2026, Counterpoint said, in comparison to a previous forecast of a 3.6% rise.
This is being driven by specific chip shortages and bottlenecks in the semiconductor supply chain, which are pushing up component prices.
The continued build-out of data centres globally has hiked demand for systems developed by Nvidia, which in turn uses components designed by SK Hynix and Samsung — the two biggest suppliers of so-called memory chips.
However, a specific component called dynamic random-access memory or DRAM, which is used in AI data centers, is also critical for smartphones. DRAM prices have surged this year as demand outstrips supply.
For low-end smartphones priced below $200, the bill of materials cost has increased 20% to 30% since the beginning of the year, Counterpoint said. The bill of materials is the cost of producing a single smartphone.
The mid and high-end smartphone segment has seen material costs rise 10% to 15%.
“Memory prices could rise another 40% through Q2 2026, resulting in BoM costs increasing anywhere between 8% and over 15% above current elevated levels,” Counterpoint said.
The rising price of components could be passed on to consumers and that will in turn, drive the rise in the average selling price.
“Apple and Samsung are best positioned to weather the next few quarters,” MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint, said in the note. “But it will be tough for others that don’t have as much wiggle room to manage market share versus profit margins.”
Hwang said this will “play out especially” with Chinese smartphone makers who are in the mid-to-lower end of the market.
Counterpoint said some companies may downgrade components like camera modules, displays and even audio, as well as reusing old components. Smartphone players are likely to try to incentivize consumers to buy their higher-priced devices too.
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