Notice before enforcement staff make recommendations to agency commissioners, who then decide whether or not to file charges. Gensler, Musk and Spiro did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. company. The pension fund’s attorneys argued that Musk, by failing to clearly disclose his investments in and intentions to buy Twitter, had influenced other shareholders’ decisions and put them at a disadvantage. WATCH: Elon Musk asks did send a settlement offer to Musk in recent days, but he was given more than 48 hours to respond. If the SEC cannot reach a settlement agreement with Musk, this person said, charges would not necessarily follow as a next step. When the agency cannot arrive at a settlement agreement with defendants, it will sometimes issue what’s called a Wells Notice before enforcement staff make recommendations to agency commissioners, who then decide whether or not to file charges. Gensler, Musk and Spiro did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. Musk’s lawyer argued in his letter that the SEC has engaged in “more than six years of harassment” of Musk via investigative activity, including by reopening an investigation into the billionaire’s health tech venture Neuralink this week. Spiro also wrote that he had personally been subpoenaed by SEC staff but refused to comply. He accused the agency of an “improperly motivated campaign against Mr. Musk and the individuals and companies associated with him,” and demanded to know whether the White House or the SEC had directed this action against his client. In 2018, the SEC charged Musk with civil securities fraud after he tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and had “funding secured” to do so. No take-private deal ever materialized. Musk and Tesla each paid $20 million fines to the agency, and struck a revised settlement agreement that required Musk to temporarily relinquish his role as chairman of the board at Tesla. Since that time, Musk has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the SEC. The Tesla, SpaceX and X leader also became a Republican mega-donor in recent years, and helped propel President-elect Donald Trump back to the White House. In July this year, Trump vowed to fire the SEC chairman. After Trump’s election victory, Gensler announced that he would be resigning from his post instead. In a separate civil lawsuit concerning the Twitter deal, which is a focus of the recent SEC probe, the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System sued Musk accusing him of deliberately concealing his progressive investments in the social network, and intent to buy out the company. The pension fund’s attorneys argued that Musk, by failing to clearly disclose his investments in and intentions to buy Twitter, had influenced other shareholders’ decisions and put them at a disadvantage. WATCH: Elon Musk asks court to block OpenAI from converting to a for-profit