Elon Musk defends Tesla buyout tweets at fraud trial
- The CEO is accused of misleading investors by tweeting ‘funding secured’ over a deal that never came close to happening
- Musk told the jury: ‘Just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly’
Elon Musk was in the witness box on Friday to defend a 2018 tweet claiming he had lined up the financing to take Tesla private in a deal that never came close to happening.
The tweet resulted in a US$40 million settlement with securities regulators. It also led to a class-action lawsuit alleging he misled investors, pulling him into court on Friday.
The mercurial billionaire appeared wearing a dark suit on the third day of a civil trial in San Francisco that his lawyer unsuccessfully tried to move to Texas, where Tesla is now headquartered, on the premise that media coverage of his tumultuous takeover of Twitter had tainted the jury pool.
The nine-person jury assembled earlier this week will be responsible for deciding whether a pair of tweets that Musk posted on August 7, 2018 damaged Tesla shareholders during a 10-day period leading up to a Musk admission that the buy-out he had envisioned wasn’t going to happen.
A month later, Musk stepped down as Tesla’s chairman while remaining CEO as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission settlement without acknowledging any wrongdoing.