Judge Rejects Musk’s Bid to Move SEC Case Out of DC

Elon Musk just took an L in court. The billionaire failed to convince a federal judge in Washington, DC, to move the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against him to Texas, where he lives and runs his empire.

US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wasn’t buying it. She wrote Thursday that while she “takes Mr. Musk’s convenience seriously,” the world’s richest man has “considerable means” and spends at least 40 percent of his time outside Texas anyway.

“Indeed,” she added, “Mr. Musk’s brief itself indicates that he has spent substantial time here this year,” citing his stint running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under President Donald Trump. Sooknanan also noted that Texas judges are swamped with heavier caseloads, while she could handle this matter with “reasonable alacrity.”

Musk had argued he’s simply too busy: an “incredibly busy individual” who works 80-plus-hour weeks and sometimes crashes in his office or factory. Fighting the SEC in DC, he claimed, would create “substantial burdens.”

The SEC, meanwhile, accuses Musk of playing fast and loose with disclosure rules. Regulators say he waited 11 days too long to reveal his 5 percent Twitter stake back in early 2022, a delay they argue let him scoop up more than $500 million in stock at artificially low prices. The agency wants him to pay a fine and cough up $150 million in alleged gains. Musk is trying to get the case tossed.

For the record, Musk now owns all of Twitter (renamed X), which he bought for $44 billion later that same year. His net worth? It cracked $500 billion this week, Forbes says.

Lawyers for Musk didn’t comment, and the SEC stayed silent, citing the government shutdown. Musk also tried to get the case moved to Manhattan, where ex-Twitter shareholders are suing him, but the judge shot that down too.