Elon Musk has acknowledged that delaying the disclosure related to Twitter was a mistake and is now seeking to terminate the lawsuit

Elon Musk is seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by former Twitter shareholders who claim he delayed revealing his substantial ownership stake in the company in early 2022. In a filing late Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, Musk argued that it is implausible to suggest he intended to defraud shareholders unaware of his 9.2% stake, causing them to miss out on significant gains by selling their shares prematurely.

The plaintiffs in the proposed class action assert that Musk and his wealth manager, Jared Birchall, knew that a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule required Musk to disclose his 5% Twitter stake by March 24, 2022, but he waited an additional 11 days to do so. According to Forbes, Musk, the world's richest person, also leads other companies like Tesla.

Musk's filing stated that he had planned to disclose his Twitter stake at the end of 2022 but did so earlier after realizing he misunderstood the SEC disclosure rule. He insisted that the delay was a mistake, not a fraudulent scheme. Musk also refuted the investors' allegation that an unnamed Morgan Stanley banker helped create a trading strategy to buy Twitter shares without alerting the market.

Last September, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter refused to dismiss an earlier version of the lawsuit, citing evidence that Musk understood the SEC disclosure requirements and had testified about them under oath.

The case is titled Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System v. Musk et al., in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-03026.