Musk did not defraud Tesla investors with infamous. A jury has found Elon Musk not responsible for costing investors millions of dollars. When he sent out a series of tweets about “securing” financing to take the electric car maker private.
Friday’s verdict by a nine-person jury in Northern California marks a legal victory for the 51-year-old billionaire. Who has seen the value of his Tesla holdings drop 44% in the past year.
During the lawsuit, Musk personally took the stand in defense of the tweets, testifying that he believed he had a handshake deal with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in 2018 to take Tesla, a public company, private. He said the Saudis rejected the deal.
“I had no ulterior motive,” Musk said during nearly eight hours of testimony last month. “My intention was to do the right thing for all shareholders.
Nicholas Porritt, an attorney representing Tesla shareholders in the case, says there was never a formal agreement. That Musk’s tweets served his own interests rather than those of investors. Costing him millions and possibly billions of dollars as Tesla’s stock price fluctuated. during the ordeal.
California District Judge Edward Chen ruled the tweets false and reckless before the trial. Separately, Musk and Tesla reached $40 million settlements with the Securities. Exchange Commission just a month after the tweet appeared. Though Chen instructed the jury not to consider that development in its deliberations.
Musk did not defraud Tesla investors with infamous; Just three weeks after his online musings, Musk decided to abandon the proposal to take it private after consulting with shareholders. But Musk, along with several of his colleagues, testified that they had no doubt that Musk could have raised the money to take the company private if needed, especially at SpaceX, his rocket company.
On the one hand, the decision to keep Tesla public has paid off: Tesla shares are worth more than eight times what they were at the time of Musk’s buyout tweet, after the two share exchanges that have taken place since then.
