SEC continuing $150 million lawsuit against Elon Musk over Twitter purchase
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(WASHINGTON) — The Securities and Exchange Commission is continuing its $150 million lawsuit against Elon Musk that was brought during the Biden administration.
According to a court filing Monday, the tech billionaire and head of the Department of Government Efficiency has agreed to respond to the suit, which accuses him of misleading investors when he bought millions of dollars in Twitter stock in 2022, prior to his acquisition of the company.
The SEC brought the case against Musk on Jan. 14 in the waning days of the Biden administration, and a representative of the SEC served Musk with the complaint and a summons earlier this month — though Musk contests the validity of the service.
Under the terms of the agreement, Musk’s lawyers will file a response to the complaint by June 6, pending approval from the court.
“The parties respectfully submit that this compromise is reasonable and will conserve judicial resources,” the filing said.
Monday’s filing marks the first time a deadline for Musk to respond to the complaint has been raised by either party.
Musk’s lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment by ABC News.
“They spend their time on s— like this when there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished,” Musk said on X in January in response to the SEC’s suit.
(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency faces its first major legal hurdle this afternoon when a federal judge in Washington, D.C., considers blocking the newly formed arm of the federal government from accessing sensitive records from the Treasury Department.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is hearing arguments Wednesday over whether she should issue a temporary restraining order prohibiting DOGE from accessing or using Treasury Department data as part of DOGE’s effort to trim the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump.
The hearing follows a lawsuit filed by three federal unions that alleged DOGE employees violated federal privacy laws when they accessed data from the Treasury Department, including the names, social security numbers, birthdays, bank account numbers, and addresses of taxpayers.
“The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” the lawsuit alleged.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the Service Employees International Union, and the Alliance for Retired Americans alleged that Musk and DOGE — with the consent of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — unlawfully accessed the sensitive records without providing any legal justification, public reasoning, or legal procedure to collect taxpayer data.
According to the lawsuit, DOGE’s “full, continuous, and ongoing access” of sensitive data risks the security of millions of Americans.
“People who must share information with the federal government should not be forced to share information with Elon Musk or his ‘DOGE.’ And federal law says they do not have to,” the lawsuit says.
The plaintiffs requested a temporary restraining order preventing the Treasury Department from providing DOGE sensitive information as well as enjoining DOGE employees from using any of the records they might have already obtained.
(NEW YORK) — More than 100 Drug Enforcement Administration agents packed a New York City federal courtroom Friday for the arraignment of the alleged mastermind behind the 1985 murder of Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, the first DEA agent killed on Mexican soil.
Rafael Caro Quintero, 72, was arraigned on multiple drug and weapons offenses in Brooklyn federal court following his extradition Thursday to the U.S. from Mexico.
“Today is a historic event,” Frank Tarentino, the special agent in charge of the DEA’s New York division, said at a press briefing outside the courthouse following the hearing. “We have waited 40 years for this day. This day, when justice would be served.”
Caro Quintero appeared in a bright orange tee shirt beneath a navy smock for his arraignment. He was shackled at the hands before he took his seat in court.
A DEA agent was allowed to join U.S. marshals in escorting Caro Quintero from the courtroom, a symbolic gesture. Forty years after the death of Camarena, the DEA finally has its man.
“After 40 years the man who murdered Enrique Camarena is finally facing justice in the United States,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said in court. “Justice never forgets.”
Komatireddy said Caro Quintero “pioneered Mexican drug trafficking” and the violent enforcement of his cartel’s turf.
His court-appointed attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf and did not contest pretrial detention.
Caro Quintero was among 29 top drug operatives Mexico who were expelled and transferred to the U.S. under pressure from the Trump administration.
He was convicted in Mexico in 1985 of the torture and murder of Camarena, one of the most notorious killings in the history of the Mexican narco wars. After serving 28 years of his 40-year sentence, he was released from prison in 2013 when a Mexican judge ruled that he had been improperly tried. Caro Quintero promptly went into hiding, as U.S. officials stridently condemned the release.
In 2018, he was added to the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, with a $20 million reward available for information leading to his arrest or capture.
The criminal ringleader was once again detained in Mexico in 2022, nearly 10 years after his release. At the time, the FBI said that he was allegedly involved in the Sinaloa cartel and the Caro-Quintero drug trafficking organization in the region of Badiraguato in Sinaloa, Mexico, and warned that he should be considered “armed and extremely dangerous.”
Caro Quintero is charged in the Eastern District of New York with multiple drug and weapons offenses, including leading a continuing criminal enterprise, making him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.
In his remarks outside the courthouse, Tarentino said Camarena “remains a symbol of strength, honor, courage, unity and determination.”
“Rafael Caro Quintero, the man responsible for Kiki’s kidnapping, torture and murder in 1985 in Guadalajara, Mexico, will answer for his crimes,” Tarentino said.
Camarena joined the DEA in 1974, the year after its founding.
For more than four years in Mexico, Camarena investigated the country’s biggest marijuana and cocaine traffickers.
In early 1985, reportedly close to unlocking a multibillion-dollar drug pipeline, Camarena was kidnapped while headed to meet his wife. The agent’s capture and subsequent murder were dramatized in Netflix’s “Narcos: Mexico.”
Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(SEOUL and LONDON) — North Korea fired “multiple” ballistic missiles on Monday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, as U.S.-South Korea war games began nearby.
The missiles, which were “unidentified,” were fired from the North’s Hwanghae Province at about 1:50 p.m. local time, the South Korean military said. They were aimed inland, toward the West Sea.
The South Korean military “has increased surveillance and maintaining readiness posture in close cooperation with the U.S.,” the Joint Chiefs said.
The annual U.S.-South Korea joint exercises, which are known as “Freedom Shield,” were scheduled to begin Monday and run through March 21, according to the U.S. Army.
The training alongside South Korean soldiers will include urban combat, field hospital operations, field artillery exercises, air assault training and air defenses, the Army said in a statement on Monday. The U.S. Marine Corps is also expected to take part in a joint assault exercise.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry described the planned exercises as “aggressive,” with officials telling state media on Sunday that the “U.S. random exercise of strength will result in aggravated security crisis.”
“This is a dangerous provocative act of leading the acute situation on the Korean peninsula, which may spark off a physical conflict between the two sides by means of an accidental single shot, to the extreme point,” the ministry said in a statement to the Korean Central New Agency on Sunday.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
