In a news conference Thursday, Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC enforcement division, said that as chairman and CEO of a public company Musk must be "scrupulous with the truth" and that his celebrity does not exempt him from federal securities law. The commission made clear that Twitter, in Musk’s case anyway, can be considered a direct channel of communications to investors. Its complaint noted that the company said in a 2013 filing it intended to use Musk’s Twitter account “as a means of announcing material information to the public about Tesla” and encouraged investors to follow the account. Musk had 22 million Twitter followers the day he tweeted that funding was secured.

Source: Los Angeles Times September 27, 2018 20:35 UTC