Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweets gained a stout defense based on securities and constitutional law from his attorneys’ recent response to a Feb. 25 complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that he violated a September 2018 fraud settlement.

The defense of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweets claimed he “dutifully complied” with the September federal court order and a policy adopted by the company to honor it, arguing his single Feb. 19 tweet that drew the SEC’s ire was “immaterial” to investors. Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA)stock has shown a tendency to fall when the SEC has accused Musk of missteps and the agency’s latest claims against him were followed by a new share-price drop.

Tesla’s share price fell $7.56 a share, or 2.6 percent, on March 12, after Musk’s attorneys filed their response to the SEC’s complaint late the previous day. The stock price also could have been hurt by a March 12 research note from Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas, who trimmed his price target on Tesla’s stock to $260 from $283 due to price cuts as low as $35,000 for the auto maker’s Model 3.

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Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce,Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is the editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Record newspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz. Follow Paul on Twitter@PaulDykewicz.