Jury Verdict Elon Musk Is Not Responsible For Any Shareholder Losses. Elon Musk is not legally responsible for the tweets he sent in 2018 in which he claimed he had “financing secured” to take Tesla private at a price of $420 per share. After deliberating for several weeks, a jury in San Francisco reached the conclusion that Elon Musk was not responsible for the financial losses sustained by Tesla stockholders.
The judgement is a significant win for Musk, who could have been liable for damages of billions of dollars had he been found guilty. In his testimony before the federal court, Musk stated that the mere fact that he tweets anything “does not mean that people believe it or will act accordingly.” Additionally, he contended that he could have funded the transaction using the shares of SpaceX that he owned.
Thank goodness, the wisdom of the people has prevailed!
I am deeply appreciative of the jury’s unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 take-private case.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2023
The shareholders who initiated the class action suit had alleged that Musk’s comments about funding were untrue, and that they lost significant amounts of money due to fluctuations in the stock price as a result of Musk’s tweets. The jury, however, did not reach the conclusion that Musk had purposefully deceived the public in any way, despite the judge in the case coming to the conclusion that the tweets were “objectively untrue and reckless.”
Despite the fact that the verdict puts an end to the years-long drama of the “funding secured” tweets, Musk may still have to face some repercussions as a result of his posts.
In 2018, he reached a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and as a condition of the settlement, he resigned from his position as chair of the Tesla board of directors. Musk has publicly criticised the settlement with the SEC for a long time and has stated that he was “forced to admit I lied to save Tesla’s life.”
Following the announcement of the conviction, Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, issued a statement to Bloomberg in which he stated that “the jury got it right.” Musk weighed in as well, naturally via tweet, stating that he was “very grateful” for the support.
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