Musk Jury to Decide if Twitter Deal ‘On Hold’ Post Was Fraud
The query of whether or not Elon Musk defrauded Twitter Inc. traders went to an eight-person San Francisco jury Tuesday afternoon, who will determine if Musk might be held answerable for a 2022 tweet that stated his $44 billion settlement to purchase the platform was “temporarily on hold,” inflicting the inventory worth to tumble.
Musk, the world’s richest individual, might be on the hook for damages ranging within the billions of {dollars}, though the precise quantity probably would not be recognized instantly given the extra knowledge that will probably be wanted to calculate a complete damages award.
“Mr. Musk’s tweets were not some innocent mistakes, some stupid tweet that he didn’t consider,” Mark Molumphy of Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP informed the jury throughout closing arguments Tuesday. “They were intentional, deliberate, and designed to convey to investors that Twitter was overrun with spam.”
“Mr. Musk literally had no proof for these tweets that he issued,” Molumphy added.
The jurors heard three weeks of stay testimony from Musk and prime Twitter executives, who recalled the turbulent six month interval in 2022 when Musk flip-flopped over whether or not he would buy the platform, leading to onerous fought litigation with Twitter’s board of administrators to pressure Musk’s observe by way of.
The traders claimed throughout trial that Musk’s social media posts and public statements—together with a May 13, 2022, tweet stating the deal was on maintain pending a overview of Twitter’s spam account numbers—was truly a part of a deliberate plan to drive down the corporate’s inventory worth so he might renegotiate at a greater worth.
The trial included greater than a day of stay testimony from Musk, who largely stayed on script in telling the jury that he believed Twitter executives, together with chief govt officer Parag Agrawal and monetary officer Ned Segal, lied to him and in public monetary statements concerning the proportion of spam and faux accounts, often known as bots, on the platform.
Musk testified that whereas the May 13 tweet on the coronary heart of the case was not his “wisest,” he was all the time dedicated to the deal however had a real concern about resolving Twitter’s spam problem. Once he found that Twitter’s 5% spam quantity appeared to be based mostly on little knowledge and a flawed methodology, he started to have severe misgivings, he stated.
“Of course people were talking about a renegotiation once this bot issue came up,” Musk’s lawyer Michael Lifrak of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP informed the jury throughout closing arguments. “There was no secret about that.”
The verdict kind asks the jury to decide whether or not Musk made materials false statements in both his May 13 tweet, in a later May 16 tweet, or in statements made throughout an interview with the “All-In” enterprise and tech podcast. If he’s discovered liable, the jury will then decide quantity that Twitter’s inventory was artificially deflated by Musk’s false statements for every day between May 13 and Oct. 3, 2022, when Musk agreed to purchase the corporate on the authentic $54.20 per share settlement.
“Two tweets and a podcast does not equal securities fraud,” Lifrak stated.
Musk has beforehand succeeded in warding off securities instances over his social media habits. Three years in the past in the identical federal courtroom in San Francisco, a jury took solely two hours of deliberation to clear him of wrongdoing when he tweeted in 2018 that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla Inc. personal.
The case is Pampena v. Musk, N.D. Cal., No. 3:22-cv-05937, 3/17/26.
