Elon Musk did not disclose his investment in Twitter in advance as required, and doing so may have made him $156 million. Musk quietly bought nearly 10% of Twitter in the first few months of the year. According to his April 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk invested $2.64 billion in Twitter shares from January to April this year.
Musk’s filing, however, was 11 days behind the SEC’s rule. That operation may have made him $156 million, as Twitter’s stock has soared 31% after Musk disclosed that he was in fact the company’s largest shareholder.
According to calculations by legal and securities experts, if Musk had disclosed his investments early, following SEC guidelines, the remaining 4.1% of shares he bought after the disclosure would have cost more: about $156 million. The SEC requires shareholders to disclose when they cumulatively own more than 5% of a company’s shares.
While late disclosures could lead to penalties from the SEC, experts say the fines are unlikely to come close to the $156 million he earned by doing so.
