SAN FRANCISCO: A jury on Friday cleared Elon Musk of liability for defrauding investors in a 2018 lawsuit over his tweets that claimed he had the funds to take Tesla private. are present.
The tweets sent Tesla’s share price on a rollercoaster ride, and Musk was sued by shareholders who said the tycoon acted negligently in an effort to squeeze investors who had bet against the company.
Jurors deliberated for barely two hours before returning to a San Francisco courtroom to unanimously agree that neither Musk nor the Tesla board committed fraud with the tweets and their consequences. Committed curd.
“Thank God, people’s wisdom prevailed!” tweeted Musk, who had tried but failed to move the case to Texas because judges in California would be biased against him.
“I heartily applaud the jury’s unanimous finding of not guilty in the Tesla 420 tech-private case.”
Attorney Nicholas Port, who represents Glenn Littleton and other investors in Tesla, argued in court that the case was about making sure the rich and powerful obeyed the same stock market rules. As does everyone else.
“Elon Musk posted tweets that were false with reckless disregard for their truth,” Port told the nine-judge panel during closing arguments.
Port pointed to expert testimony that estimated that Musk’s claims about the funding, which turned out to be untrue, cost investors billions of dollars in aggregate losses and ordered Musk and the Tesla board to pay damages. Must be forced.
But Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, successfully countered that the billionaire made a mistake in tweeting in haste, but that he didn’t set out to deceive anyone.
Spiro also portrays the prolific entrepreneur, who now owns Twitter, having a troubled childhood and coming to America as a poor young man chasing his dreams.
No joke.
Musk testified on the witness stand over three days that his 2018 tweet about taking Tesla private for $420 a share was no joke and that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund was serious about helping him.
“For Elon Musk, if he believes it or just thinks about it then it’s true no matter how objectively false or exaggerated it is,” Port told the judges.
Tesla and its board were also to blame, because they let Musk use his Twitter account to post news about the company, Port argued.
The case revolves around a pair of tweets in which Musk said “funding is secured” for plans to buy the publicly traded electric automaker, then added in a second tweet that “Investor support confirmed.”
“He wrote two words ‘funding secured’ that were technically incorrect,” Spiro said of Musk, addressing the judges.
“Whatever you think about it, it’s not a bad Twitter trial, it’s ‘Did they prove this guy committed fraud?’ case hearing.”
Musk didn’t intend to deceive anyone with the tweets, and he had the connections and wealth to take Tesla private, Spiro claimed.
During the trial in federal court in San Francisco, Spiro said that while the tweets may have been a “careless choice of words,” they were not fraudulent.
“I’m being accused of fraud; it’s outrageous,” Musk said while testifying in person.
Musk said he deleted tweets on the issue after learning of a Financial Times story about a Saudi Arabian investment fund seeking a stake in Tesla.
The lawsuit comes at a sensitive time for Musk, who has dominated headlines for his tumultuous takeover of Twitter, where he has laid off more than half of its 7,500 employees and reduced content moderation. is given
