Elon Musk has been sued by the US markets regulator for allegedly buying Twitter shares at ‘artificially low prices’ after failing to disclose the stake he had amassed before buying the platform.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against the Tesla CEO on Tuesday and claimed Twitter investors were underpaid $150 million in stock prices as a result of his actions.

Before Musk finalized his controversial $44 million takeover of the once-popular social media platform – which he later renamed X – he began to buy up shares in the company, the lawsuit claims.

After acquiring more than five percent of the business‘ stock in March 2022, Musk had 10 days to report his ownership.

Elon Musk bought out Twitter in 2022 (Chesnot/Getty Images)

But the SEC’s filing says Musk did not report until 21 days after going beyond that threshold.

The US regulator said Musk’s ‘violation’ had resulted in ‘substantial economic harm to investors’ and in its filing asked the court to order Musk, the richest man on the planet, with a net worth of more than $400 billion, as per Forbes, to pay a fine and return ‘unjust’ profits.

The SEC said Twitter’s share price rose by more than 27 percent after Musk made his share purchase public in April 2022.

“During the period that Musk was required to publicly disclose his beneficial ownership but had failed to do so, he spent more than $500 million purchasing additional shares of Twitter common stock,” the lawsuit says.

X investors lost out on $150 million in share prices (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

“Because Musk failed to timely disclose his beneficial ownership, he was able to make these purchases from the unsuspecting public at artificially low prices, which did not yet reflect the undisclosed material information of Musk’s beneficial ownership of more than five percent of Twitter common stock and investment purpose.”

Musk’s lawyer, Adam Spiro, told the Huffington Post the lawsuit was a ‘sham’ and a petty effort by outgoing SEC chair Gary Gensler to hurt Musk.

“The SEC’s multi-year campaign of harassment against Mr. Musk culminated in the filing of a single-count ticky tak complaint against Mr. Musk … for an alleged administrative failure to file a single form — an offense that, even if proven, carries a nominal penalty,” Spiro said.

Musk will lead the new Department of Government Efficiency alongside former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

In a post to X responding to the SEC, Musk himself called it a ‘totally broken organization’ and accused it of wasting time going after him when ‘there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished’.

The tech billionaire could soon have a say over the running of the SEC when he begins his role as an adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump as part of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with trimming the US federal budget.

The new department will sit outside government but will offer guidance to the Trump White House, with Musk leading it alongside former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Former president Donald Trump was rushed off stage as gunshots rang out during a rally.

Reuters confirmed that multiple gunshots rang out while Trump addressed a crowd in Pennsylvania. As they rang out, he flinched and started holding his right ear. Moments later, there appeared to be blood on his face as the Secret Service whisked him away.

The United States Secret Service confirmed Donald Trump is now safe via a statement: “An incident occurred the evening of July 13 at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. The Secret Service has implemented protective measures and the former President is safe. This is now an active Secret Service investigation and further information will be released when available.”

The former president’s campaign has also spoken out to confirm he is ‘fine’: “President Trump thanks law enforcement and first responders for their quick action during this heinous act.”

“He is fine and is being checked out at a local medical facility. More details will follow.”

The White House has confirmed President Joe Biden has received an initial briefing on the situation.

Donald Trump after the suspected shooting (Anna Moneymaker / Staff)

Fox News’ Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram spoke to an eyewitness who was in the front row at the rally when the chaos started to unfold. Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican congressman for Pennsylvania, said he heard ‘8-10 shots’ from what appeared to be a .22 or small caliber weapon. He also claimed multiple people in the crowd may have been hit and were down.

Butler County District Attorney told WTAE that one person from the crowd is believed to be dead following the shooting. However, they don’t have any information on the shooter at the time of writing.

The venue has been abandoned with chairs knocked over and the stage closed off by yellow police tape. Armed law enforcement officers were spotted on a roof near the stage where Trump was standing.

Donald Trump being escorted off stage by the Secret Service. (Anna Moneymaker / Staff)

Support for the former president has come from across the spectrum, including Senator Bernie Sanders, who said in a tweet: “Political violence is absolutely unacceptable. I wish Donald Trump, and anyone else who may have been hurt, a speedy recovery.”

The incident comes in the middle of a tight reelection campaign, with Trump battling Joe Biden for the White House. There’s not much to separate the two men in the polls, though Trump has a slight lead according to most polling models. Voting day is just four months away, on Tuesday November 5.

Elon Musk has responded after Mark Zuckerberg confirmed Meta would be following X in making a major change to how its social media platforms are run.

Zuckerberg – who now has a net worth of $213 billion – founded Facebook in 2004.

Meta acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and went on to launch Threads – an alternative to Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter – in 2023.

Now, all three Meta-owned social media sites are set to loosen moderation by scrapping third-party fact-checking in the US.

Meta’s fact checking program was introduced in 2016 and sees posts that appear to be false or misleading referred to independent organisations for verification.

Inaccurate posts are labeled with wider context and information.

Facebook, Instagram and Threads users in the US will notice the change (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The system is being axed in a bid to restore ‘free expression’, Zuckerberg said in a video update.

Instead, Meta is switching to an X-style Community Notes system where users flag content as false or misleading.

Zuckerberg said the decision was about ‘restoring free expression’ on its platforms and ‘reducing mistakes’ it said automated content moderation systems were making, which Meta believed was amounting to censorship in some cases, accusing some fact-checkers of being influenced by their own biases.

Fact-checking practices will remain as usual outside the US.

Full Fact, a fact-checking organization involved in verifying Facebook posts in Europe, called Meta’s decision a ‘backwards step’.

Zuckerberg explained Meta’s moderation changes in a new video (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)

Their chief executive Chris Morris said: “We absolutely refute Meta’s charge of bias – we are strictly impartial, fact check claims from all political stripes with equal rigour, and hold those in power to account through our commitment to truth.

“Like Meta, fact checkers are committed to promoting free speech based on good information without resorting to censorship. But locking fact checkers out of the conversation won’t help society to turn the tide on rapidly rising misinformation.”

The community notes system was first introduced on X back in 2021, becoming more widely used after Musk took over the social media giant in 2023.

It allows platform users who have signed up to the program to respond to potentially controversial posts with clarifications and wider context in a break out box.

People can then vote on if they find the annotations helpful.

And Musk – an outspoken advocate for ‘free speech’ – has since responded to Zuckerberg’s moderation changes.

Sharing a screenshot to his X profile of a Free Speech Union article headlined: “Facebook dumps fact-checkers in attempt to ‘restore’ free speech,” Musk simply responded: “This is cool.”

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The Meta changes come weeks before President-elect Donald Trump – who previously criticized Meta’s fact-checking policy – takes office. Trump even threatened Zuckerberg with life in prison at one point.

Trump said at a news conference: “Honestly, I think they have come a long way, Meta, Facebook.”

Asked whether Zuckerberg was ‘directly responding’ to threats Trump had made to him in the past, the incoming president responded: “Probably”.

Ivanka Trump has issued a brutal three-word response when she was asked if she had any plans to help out in the White House.

The 43-year-old businesswoman was a senior advisor in her father Donald Trump’s first administration as president between 2017 and 2021, and also assumed a high role as director of the Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship.

Ivanka was present at the rally her father hosted outside the White House before a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol and then, mysteriously, was nowhere to be seen on Trump’s campaign trail last year.

The former aide had previously confirmed that she and her husband, Jared Kushner, who also served as a senior advisor in the Trump White House, would be leaving Washington for sunnier shores in Florida, closing the door on politics to pursue their family life.

At the time, Ivanka said: “While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.”

Now, it appears Ivanka is sticking to her guns and has zero intention of helping her father out during his second administration, which he is due to take over on Monday (January 20).

Ivanka Trump previously served as an advisor for her father, Donald (Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Appearing on The Skinny Confidential’s Him & Her Show on Tuesday (January 14), Trump’s eldest daughter issued a brutal response when asked why she is steering clear of Washington.

Ivanka explained: “I love policy and impact. I hate politics. And unfortunately, the two are not separable.”

She continued: “There is a darkness to that world that I don’t really want to welcome into mine.

“To some degree, I’m at the center of the storm because my father is about to be president, but it’s a very dark, negative business. And some people love the gladiator aspect of it – the fight. That was never me.”

The couple and their three children moved to Florida after Trump’s 2020 election loss, which she suggested was in her hindsight of knowing the true ‘cost’ of serving for her country.

Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

“It’s a price that I’m not willing to make my kids bear,” she added, and said she missed out on some ‘really critical moments’.

“My primary goals were just to like, be the best freaking mom,” Ivanka reaffirmed.

Despite distancing herself from politics, Ivanka said she still intends to ‘show up’ for her dad – but just as a daughter rather than an aide.

She continued: “I think I’m most looking forward to just being able to show up for him as a daughter and be there for him to take his mind off things, to watch a movie with him, or watch a sports game.

“To know that he can be with me, and be himself and just relax and for me to be able to provide that for him in a very loving way as his daughter.

“It’s the world’s loneliest position – the enormity of the decisions you’re making on a daily basis, how transactional everyone is with you.”