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Bulletins

The SEC is investigating Elon Musk and his brother for insider trading

The agency is looking into whether Tesla stock sales from Elon and Kimbal Musk violated rules, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Elon Musk

Musk and his brother, Kimbal Musk, are reportedly under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commision.

Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating whether Tesla stock sales by Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal Musk, violated insider trading rules because the sales were made one day before Elon Musk tweeted about selling shares in the company, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The SEC reportedly began investigating the brothers last year after Kimbal Musk sold 88,500 shares the day before Musk's Twitter poll about selling 10% of his stake in Tesla. Musk eventually sold more than $11 billion worth of stock during the last few months of 2021. If Kimbal Musk (who is a Tesla board member) knew about the upcoming Twitter poll before it happened, he could be in violation of rules that prevent board members and company leaders from trading on information not known to the public, according to the Journal report.

Last week, Elon Musk's attorney filed a complaint that alleged the SEC is harassing the Tesla CEO and trying to censor his speech by investigating his Twitter comments. The complaint argues that the SEC continues to overstep the bounds of a 2018 agreement wherein Tesla agreed to monitor Musk's tweets related to the company.

Anna Kramer

Anna Kramer is a reporter at Protocol (Twitter: @ anna_c_kramer, email: akramer@protocol.com), where she writes about labor and workplace issues. Prior to joining the team, she covered tech and small business for the San Francisco Chronicle and privacy for Bloomberg Law. She is a recent graduate of Brown University, where she studied International Relations and Arabic and wrote her senior thesis about surveillance tools and technological development in the Middle East.

elon muskteslasecinsider tradingkimbal musk
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