The Securities Trade Fee has one more reason to return after Elon Musk.

The world’s richest man disclosed Monday that he is acquired a 9.2% stake in social media firm Twitter, sending Twitter shares up greater than 28% as of mid-day.

The submitting marks Musk’s accumulation of frequent shares to March 14. Musk’s stake is passive in line with the monetary disclosure.

The SEC mandates that anybody who acquires greater than 5% of an organization’s common shares disclose their holdings within 10 calendar days. Musk signed his submitting 21 days after March 14.

On March 25, the day after the 10-day interval lapsed, Musk posted a ballot on Twitter, with the next preamble: “Free speech is crucial to a functioning democracy. Do you imagine Twitter rigorously adheres to this precept?”

He adopted up on his personal ballot by stating, “The results of this ballot will probably be vital. Please vote rigorously.”

Musk had truly already acquired his giant stake in Twitter at this level — and legally needed to reveal it.

SEC disclosure punishments are traditionally modest — often about $100,000. Musk’s internet price, in line with Forbes, is about $300 billion. A $100,000 wonderful quantities to .00003% of Musk’s wealth. The median net worth of a U.S. household is about $122,000. An equal wonderful to a median American family can be about 3 cents.

Musk’s intentions together with his giant stake are unclear. In late January, conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza, who was convicted of campaign finance fraud in 2014, tagged Musk in a tweet telling him that he “can dramatically change the political and cultural panorama” by shopping for and taking on “a serious social media platform.”

Musk responded saying, “Attention-grabbing concepts.”

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has a historical past of courting controversy and selling his corporations on the Twitter platform, whereas dismissing some SEC guidelines.

In September 2018, the SEC charged Musk with making “false and deceptive” statements to buyers when he introduced by way of Twitter in August that yr he was contemplating taking Tesla non-public at $420 a share and had funding secured. Tesla shares seesawed for weeks after that, and the deal Musk alluded to by no means materialized.

Musk and Tesla finally agreed to a settlement with the government and revised it in 2019. Below the phrases of their deal, Musk and Tesla every needed to pay $20 million in fines to the SEC, and Musk needed to quickly relinquish his function as chairman of the board at Tesla.

In June 2020, the SEC stated Musk was seemingly in violation of some phrases of the settlement that required the CEO to have tweets pre-approved in the event that they contained materials enterprise details about Tesla more likely to impression the inventory worth. Musk had tweeted that Tesla’s inventory worth was too excessive, sending the value of shares down.

Earlier this yr, the SEC subpoenaed Elon Musk and Tesla after he informally polled his tens of millions of Twitter followers, asking if he should sell 10% of his Tesla holdings. The vast majority of his followers voted sure.

Musk’s battles with regulators are usually public and messy, sometimes together with vulgar taunts. The CEO has expressed his displeasure with the SEC on Twitter on a number of events, together with in October 2018 when he known as the company the “shortseller enrichment fee,” and in July 2020 when he wrote: “SEC, three letter acronym, center phrase is Elon’s.”

Musk hasn’t stated something publicly about his intentions concerning Twitter administration or possession for the reason that monetary submitting was printed. His solely assertion since disclosing the stake — on Twitter — was “Oh hello lol.”

Musk didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from CNBC.

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