(Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk again defended his Twitter use to the New York judge weighing a request by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to hold him in contempt of an order that he get prior approval before posting material information about Tesla Inc.

The SEC’s contempt request relies on a “radical reinterpretation” of the earlier order, Musk said in court papers Friday in Manhattan federal court.

Musk’s filing came in response to an SEC filing last week that called Musk’s behavior “stunning” after he failed to seek approval from company attorneys for any of his tweets about Tesla. In a deal approved late last year, the chief executive officer agreed to clear posts containing material information about the company with an in-house securities lawyer.

Musk says he didn’t breach the agreement and that the SEC’s demands violate his right to free speech. The securities regulator argues that Musk’s tweets forecasting the company’s electric-vehicle production were misleading and hadn’t been vetted as required.

If U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan finds Musk in contempt as the SEC requests, she could impose new fines, order additional controls on Musk’s social-media use, and even suspend or bar him from running Tesla or any other public company. Nathan hasn’t said when she’ll rule on the request.

Musk previously said he’s “dramatically decreased the amount that I tweet about Tesla” and has cut his average monthly Tesla-related tweets nearly in half.

Last year, Musk’s tweets about taking the company private resulted in $40 million in fines, the appointment of independent directors and his ouster from the chairman role.

Legal experts say the SEC and the judge will probably try to avoid punishing Musk in a way that harms shareholders, which means a permanent ban from running the company is unlikely.

The case is U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Musk, 18-cv-08865, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Steve Stroth

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