Musk Throws Shade at Twitter CEO (and Securities Rules)

It’s day 43 in the Elon Musk–Twitter saga—and things are getting even weirder. Today we witnessed the bizarre spectacle of Elon Musk tweeting a poop emoji at Parag Agrawal after the Twitter CEO tried to clarify the company’s procedures for keeping spam bots at bay. A short time later, Bloomberg reported that Musk had told a private conference in Miami a viable deal for Twitter at a lower price than what he had negotiated “wouldn’t be out of the question.” Well, that’s one way to communicate with investors. Not the right way, mind you.

Where’s SEC Chair Gary Gensler when you need him? The SEC, according to its website, oversees securities laws based on the concept that “everyone should be treated fairly and have access to certain facts about investments.” Clearly, if Musk is opining to a private gathering about a deal he has negotiated and implying he’s interested in changes to said deal, that’s not giving every investor the same access to information. We don’t even know the full context of the remark Bloomberg reported.