After ducking investigators last year, billionaire Elon Musk agreed to testify in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s probe into his 2022 purchase of Twitter, the social media network now known as X, according to a court filing on Thursday.

Musk will sit down with SEC officials at one of their offices for a maximum of five hours of questioning later this year. The date has been agreed upon, but was not included in the filing for “confidentiality purposes.”

What You Need To Know

  • After ducking investigators last year, billionaire Elon Musk agreed to testify in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s probe into his 2022 purchase of Twitter, the social media network now known as X

  • The SEC sued to ensure his testimony late last year after he bailed on a Sept. 15 sitdown he had been subpoenaed for

  • While Musk took Twitter private after acquiring it for $44 billion in 2022, the SEC is investigating his actions prior to his takeover when the company was still publicly traded

  • Musk and the SEC have frequently clashed, including over his leadership of his electric car company Tesla

In February, a judge had ordered Musk to testify for the third time. The SEC sued to ensure his testimony late last year after he bailed on a Sept. 15 sitdown he had been subpoenaed for. At the time, the SEC wrote in court filings that  “Musk attempted to justify his refusal to comply with the subpoena by raising, for the first time, several spurious objections, including an objection to San Francisco as an appropriate testimony location.”

This time, the SEC has agreed to let Musk pick one of four of their offices. In turn, Musk has agreed to not appeal the court ruling that compelled him to testify.

The SEC did not immediately return a request for comment. Messages sent to X’s press email were met with an auto-response of “busy now, please check back later.” Musk, a prolific poster on his social media website, did not address the filing publicly on Thursday.

The filing was signed by Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro, who also did not return a request for comment. In October, when the SEC sued to enforce their subpoena, Spiro called the probe a “misguided investigation” in a statement.

While Musk took Twitter private after acquiring it for $44 billion in 2022, the SEC is investigating his actions prior to his takeover when the company was still publicly traded. Musk has already testified in the case twice. But since then, according to the judge’s order, the SEC has received “thousands of new documents” from various parties, including hundreds of documents from Musk.

The agency said it has not concluded that anyone has violated federal securities laws.

After signing a deal to acquire Twitter in April 2022, Musk tried to back out of it, leading the company to sue him to force him to go through with the acquisition.

The SEC is probing his purchase of Twitter stock, as well as his 2022 statements and SEC filings related to Twitter, according to court filings.

Musk and the SEC have frequently clashed, including over his leadership of his electric car company Tesla. Last month, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Musk over a settlement with the SEC that required him to get approval in advance of some tweets that relate to Tesla, a publicly traded company.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.