The top U.S. securities regulator on Tuesday said Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk should remain bound by his 2018 agreement to obtain advance approval from company lawyers for some of his use of Twitter.

In a filing in Manhattan federal court, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also rejected what it called Musk's "substantively meritless" motion to quash a subpoena requesting records concerning his Twitter poll last November over whether to sell some of his Tesla stock.