Legal advisors take warned that Tesla chief executive Elon Musk could come under scrutiny from the U.S. Security and Exchange Committee over his social media activity and public statements around Bitcoin.

On Monday, Feb. 8 Tesla announced in an SEC filing that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and will before long offset accepting BTC payments. Presently afterwards, prices of the asset skyrocketed to a new all-time high of a little over $48,000.

Partner at Linklaters and erstwhile branch principal of the SEC's segmentation of enforcement, Doug Davison, told the UK'southward Telegraph paper:

"Information technology would non exist surprising—given the focus on the chief executive's Tweets, Bitcoin pricing and contempo dramatic market moves—for the SEC to ask questions virtually the facts and circumstances here,"

Former vice president of the European Central Bank, Vitor Constâncio, echoed the sentiment concluding that the "SEC will await into this,"

The SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have the ability to investigate should they suspect market manipulation.

Musk has been vocal on Twitter nearly Bitcoin and DOGE on a number of occasions which contributed to Bitcoin activity on the social media platform spiking to its highest levels.

Bitcoin surged xx% in late January subsequently Musk added #Bitcoin to his Twitter bio and tweeted "In retrospect it was inevitable" and in late December he posted an explicit meme suggesting he was strongly tempted to buy Bitcoin.

There is footling doubt that Tesla'south public foray into Bitcoin has contributed to this latest toll spike, with Musk'due south influential tweets most crypto to his 46.5 1000000 followers besides able to move markets.

He is withal currently shilling Dogecoin with this recent tweet late on Feb. x stating he is ownership the asset. DOGE spiked 13% following that particular tweet a few hours ago.

Musk is no stranger to Twitter controversy; he has been previously defendant of posting misinformation on the platform regarding Covid-19 and the closure of one of his factories.

In some other incident he suggested that Tesla stock cost was too loftier, resulting in a subsequent cost slide. The SEC sued Musk for fraud, charging the Tesla chief with making "false and misleading tweets," simply he settled with the regulator soon after.