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Elon Musk takes witness stand to defend Tesla buyout tweets in civil court case | Science & Tech News



Elon Musk has launched the witness box to refute allegations that Tesla shareholders were defrauded of billions of dollars by his tweets from 2018.

Company’s CEO wrote in 2018 that he had “guaranteed” funding to privatize the electric carmaker and that investor backing was “confirmed” afterwards. causing the stock to skyrocket and then fall.

Less than three weeks later, Musk back to the plan.

Investors bought or sold stocks in the days following the tweet looking for unspecified damagebut declared muskTheir tweets cost them “billions of dollars”.

The trial found that Musk’s social media admission led to a $40m (£32m) settlement with securities regulators, as well as a collective action lawsuit. could accuse him of deceiving investors and he was forced to resign as company president.

The 51-year-old billionaire, who has run Twitter since buying the platform for $44 billion in October, attended the trial for about half an hour on Friday to give sworn testimony before the jury. consisting of 9 people and a room full of reporters. other audience.

The trial was then adjourned for the weekend, with Musk asked to return on Monday to answer further questions.

Judge Edward Chen previously denied Musk’s request to move the case to Texas, with the billionaire expressing concern that potential jurors in California would be biased against him.

In his first courtroom address, the business magnate defended his prolific tweet as “the most democratic way” to distribute information even while acknowledging Twitter’s 240-character limit can making it as hard to be as obvious as possible.

Musk said: “I think you can be completely honest [on Twitter].

“But can you be comprehensive? Of course not.”

Read more:
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When it was reported that funding was insufficient to take Tesla private, Musk resigned as chairman while remaining as chief executive of the company as part of a Securities and Exchange Commission settlement. without admitting any wrongdoing.

The jury focused on the billionaire, who wore a dark suit and tie, as he answered questions from Nicholas Porritt, the attorney representing Tesla’s shareholders.

‘The level of pain… was horrible’

When asked about the challenges Tesla faced in 2018, he described spending many nights sleeping at the carmaker’s factory in California as he struggled to keep the company afloat. .

“The sheer amount of pain it took for Tesla to succeed during that 2017-2018 period was immeasurable,” he told the court.

The test of Musk’s Tesla tweets comes at a time when he is focusing on Twitter while also serving as the automaker’s CEO and also still deeply involved in SpaceX, the rocket ship company. founded by him.

His Twitter takeover has proven unpopular with existing Tesla shareholders, who are concerned that he has been paying little attention to the automaker at a time of increasingly stiff competition – this contributed to a 65% drop in shares of Tesla last year, leaving more than $700bn (£565bn) in shareholder wealth.

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