Musk wants out of an agreement with the SEC that requires Tesla lawyers to approve his tweets.
The SEC is investigating tweets in which Musk asked his followers whether he should sell billions worth of Tesla stock. Elon Musk once again urged a federal judge to throw out a 2018 agreement he made with the Securities and Exchange Commission that requires Tesla lawyers to vet many of his tweets. In a court filing on Tuesday arguing that the tweet-regulating arrangement violates Musk's first-amendment rights, the CEO's lawyers referenced an unexpected source: the rapper Eminem.
"The [SEC] won't let me be or let me be me so let me see / They tried to shut me down," Musk's lawyers said, quoting the 2002 Eminem song"Without Me" and replacing"FCC" with"SEC." They invoked Eminem to make the point that"the First Amendment requires that agencies proceed with caution when constitutional rights are at stake." They referenced the Federal Communication Commission's 2002 decision to rescind fines against a Colorado radio station for playing Eminem's"The Real Slim Shady.