April 28 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc ( TSLA.O ) Chief Executive Elon Musk’s initial purchase of a 9% stake in Twitter Inc ( TWTR.N ) is being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), The Information reported on Thursday.
The FTC is looking into whether Musk complied with an antitrust reporting requirement when he bought his stake in the social media company in early April, the report said, citing people with knowledge of the situation.
Companies that do not comply with the rules regarding the reporting of significant stock purchases or other acquisitions can be fined up to $43,792 per day.
After the initial stock purchase, Musk, the world’s richest man, offered to buy the company for $54.20 per share in cash, which Twitter agreed to earlier this week. read more There is little expectation that Musk’s potential acquisition of Twitter will be rejected by antitrust enforcers.
The focus of the FTC’s investigation is whether Musk bought the stock to influence Twitter’s management or whether he appeared to be a passive shareholder, according to the report.
In his April 4 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk characterized his stock as passive. Read more
Twitter said it had no comment on the report, while the FTC declined to comment.
Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Diane Bartz in Washington; Editing by Aditya Soni
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