NEW YORK—Elon Musk’s lawyers urged a federal appeals court to throw out a provision in his 2018 consent decree with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requiring a Tesla Inc lawyer to vet some of his posts on Twitter.
In a brief filed late on Tuesday with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, lawyers for Musk called the pre-approval mandate a “government-imposed muzzle” that inhibited and chilled his lawful speech on a broad range of topics.
They also said the requirement violated the U.S. Constitution, and undermined public policy by running “contrary to the American principles of free speech and open debate.”…