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New Delhi: Veteran technology businessman Elon Musk has agreed to pay a fine of $ 1.5 million to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the 2022 case regarding stake in Twitter.

The US SEC had accused Musk of increasing his stake in the company in 2022 without informing Twitter shareholders. According to reports, this fine will be paid to a trust formed by Musk to the SEC to end the lawsuit, but it is still pending court approval. However, Musk has not accepted the regulator’s allegations.

According to American media reports, this is much less than the fine previously demanded by SEC from Musk. In December 2024, the SEC had sought a fine of more than $200 million from Musk.

In January 2025, days before President Donald Trump took office, the SEC sued Musk, alleging Musk violated a reporting deadline for accumulating more than 5 percent of the social media platform’s shares.

According to the regulator, this delay caused a loss of more than $150 million to Twitter’s shareholders. However, Musk later bought the company in 2022 and changed its name to X.

An SEC spokesperson said that if the settlement is finalized, it would be the largest fine the agency has ever imposed on an entity or individual for allegedly not filing beneficial ownership reports on time.

However, Musk’s lawyer described it as a “modest fine”. “As we have said from the beginning, Musk has been acquitted of all counts of late filing of forms to the Twitter acquisition. A trust entity has agreed to a nominal penalty for late filing,” Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro said in a statement. According to reports, the SEC had initially sought penalties and the return of ill-gotten profits, as well as interest. The settlement announced Monday reflects only the penalties.