Jur Tesla going private in 2018 sent the stock soaring.
Jury on Friday began deliberating whether Elon Musk committed fraud and paid dearly for 2018 tweets that falsely claimed he had enough money to take Tesla private. Are not.
The tweets have sent Tesla stock prices up like a roller coaster, and Musk has been sued by shareholders who say the tycoon acted recklessly in an attempt to squeeze investors who had bet into the company.
Attorney Nicholas Porritt, who represents Glen Littleton and other investors in the automaker, told nine jurors during the final argument: “Ultimately, the issue is whether the rules apply. for everyone else should apply to Elon Musk or not.”
“Elon Musk posted false tweets recklessly disregarding their truth.”
Porritt points to expert testimony estimating that Musk’s claims about funding, which turned out to be untrue, cost investors billions of dollars overall and that Musk and the Tesla board must compensate for the damage.
Musk testified in court that his 2018 tweet about privatizing Tesla at $420 a share was no joke and that Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund was serious about helping him do that.
“For Elon Musk, if he believes it or even just thinks about it, it’s true no matter how objectively misleading or exaggerated it is,” Porritt told jurors. .
Porritt argued that Tesla and its board should also be held accountable because they let Musk use his Twitter account to post news about the company.
The case revolved around a pair of tweets in which Musk said “funding is guaranteed” for the publicly traded electric carmaker’s acquisition project, later in a second tweet adding that “support of confirmed investors.”
“He wrote the two words ‘guaranteed funding’ as technically incorrect,” Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro said of Musk in a statement. jurors.
“Whatever you think of him, this isn’t a bad tweeter trial, it’s that they proved this man was guilty of fraud during the trial.”
Spiro argues that Musk has no intention of deceiving anyone with his tweets and has the connections and wealth to take Tesla private.
During the trial play at federal court in San Francisco, Spiro said that while the tweets may be a “reckless choice of words,” they are not scams.
“I’m being accused of fraud; that’s outrageous,” Musk said while testifying.
Musk said he was fired tweet problem after learning of a Financial Times story about a Saudi Arabian investment fund that wanted to buy shares of Tesla.
The trial comes at a delicate time for Musk, who has dominated headlines about his tumultuous Twitter acquisition, where the entrepreneur has laid off more than half of his 7,500 employees and downsized content moderation.
© 2023 AFP
quote: The jury to consider whether Musk’s 2018 Tesla tweet was a scam (2023, February 3) was taken February 3, 2023 from https://techxplore.com/news/2023-02 -jury-mulls-musk-tesla-tweet.html
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