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A jury has cleared Elon Musk of wrongdoing for his 2018 tweets in which he claimed he had financing to take Tesla private.
More to come. An earlier version of the story below
Attorneys for Tesla Inc. shareholders. who claims Elon Musk lied to him when he tweeted that he had secured funding to take an electric car company private is expected to make his closing arguments to a San Francisco jury on Friday.
A jury of nine will decide whether the tweet artificially inflated Tesla’s stock price by playing up the financing status of the deal and, if so, by how much.
Investors are seeking billions in damages from Musk, Tesla and some of the company’s directors.
The trial is testing whether Musk, the world’s second-richest person, can be held accountable for his sometimes impulsive use of Twitter.
Tesla shareholders accused Musk of misleading them on August 7, 2018, by tweeting that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 US per share, a 23 percent premium to the last closing price and valuing the company at $72 billion US, and had “guaranteed funds.”
Stock prices are down
He said Musk lied when he tweeted later that “investor support confirmed.”
Tesla’s stock price was trading above where it was before Musk’s tweets during the 10-day period covered by the lawsuit, but fell as it became clear that no purchase would happen.
During the three-week trial, the jury heard testimony from witnesses including Tesla directors, Musk’s financial advisers and Musk himself.
Musk testified funding was not an issue when he tweeted. He said he has secured funding, including a verbal commitment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, and could use his shares in SpaceX to fund the deal.
But Musk admits he has no specific commitments from potential backers.
The defense team, which is also expected to make closing arguments on Friday, has acknowledged the tweets contained “technical inaccuracies,” but Musk said he was focused on making sure small shareholders had the same information as large investors about potential purchases.
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