How so? He is even giving more information about his future intention than he had to.

That's where the market manipulation comes into play. Acknowledging/threatening a possible pump and dump if he doesn't get his way could clear the SEC's bar of "Intentional or willful conduct designed to deceive or defraud investors by controlling or artificially affecting the price of securities, or ... designed to drive a stock’s price up or down"

Someone much smarter than I could likely argue that the "threat" of Elon possibly pulling out his investment in a company is affecting the stock price, and now suddenly Elon is in control of the direction of the stock, even though the underlying fundamentals have not been changed.

https://www.sec.gov/files/Market%20Manipulations%20and%20Cas...

AFAICT, there's no deception or fraud in his behaviour; nor is there anything artificial - he's put real money down, and is offering real money. It's not like he's made a one-off tweet about it.

Not to get pedantic, but if you read their definition of market manipulation, there's another point that's unrelated to the deception/fraud clause (though those are loaded terms legally, and one again likely could argue they are)

"Intentional interference with the free forces of supply and demand"

He put money down (a lot of money down!), but that doesn't give him the right to manipulate the stock price purely based on the fact he has a stake on it or not; in fact it gives him a duty not to do so, because he now has a motive/vested interest in profiting off of it. There's rules to follow and forms to file to protect against that, and he's already has one lawsuit against him in that vein: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/14/business/twitter-lawsuit-...

It sounds to me that you're interpreting that in such a broad way that you could argue that any stock purchases he makes would be in violation of this.

If the market decides the stock should go up or down after someone invests/divests (or files the applicable, standard form), that's one thing.

If he's prematurely saying what direction he's going to go one way or another, that's another thing. You don't see Vanguard tweeting "we're going to invest in this company if X happens and divest if not" to the general public, especially if they're trying to influence X to happen.

This essentially why he got in trouble with Tesla for tweeting he wanted to take it private at $420/share, immediately making the stock price jump up, even though he did not have "funding secured" and did not take it private. And he almost lost the ability to be a CEO or on a board of a public company for 10 years because of that!

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226

> If he's prematurely saying what direction he's going to go one way or another, that's another thing. You don't see Vanguard tweeting "we're going to invest in this company if X happens and divest if not" to the general public, especially if they're trying to influence X to happen.

Because Vanguard is a passive fund. Activist funds do this all the time.

And Elon initially filed as a passive investor.

Him putting money down literally is a free market demand for that security, and his ability to freely publicly offer lots of money literally is the "free forces of supply and demand" that's not supposed to be interfered with.

This clause is explicitly not intended to do what you imply, it does not restrict this particular action by Musk at all.

Certainly someone out there agrees with you. Realistically, a lawsuit would certainly quell the interest in this and drag this issue into relative obscurity over the course of years. Timeless tactic.

It is almost certain that whatever happens, there will be a lawsuit. Suing twitter, the board, elon, maybe the SEC (possibly multiple in different directions). It happens with almost any large move where there is even a hint that something happened incorrectly.

More like it happens with any large move period, no hints needed, because the expected value payoff of a lawsuit in that case typically makes it a worthwhile exercise.

Musk being known as a long-time fan of the SEC with a respect for their rules.

> is it not against the SEC's rules for market manipulation?

Maybe, but he's also being sued over a violation of market manipulation rules with regard to non-disclosure of his recent Twitter purchase, and that's not the first problem he’s had with those rules.

“Elon Musk” and “securities rules” don't really go together.

I know; But I can't help but feel the SEC is just waiting to build up an open-and-shut case to really make an example out of him, as they usually do to high profile people who openly challenge them. Of course the richest man in the world is going to put up a very strong fight in court, and the SEC will not risk its authority by losing, so there can't be much ambiguity in any evidence they present