Coming under pressure from his lawyers and investors of Tesla, tech billionaire Elon Musk has agreed to step down as chairman of the company for three years and pay a $20 million fine in a deal with the US stock market regulatory authority, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to resolve securities fraud charges.

The SEC announced the deal on Saturday - two days after it sued Musk in federal court for misleading investors over his post on Twitter last month that he was considering taking Tesla into private ownership. Musk said that he had "funding secured" for a buyout of the electric-car company at $420 a share, reports The New York Times.