Elon Musk’s 2018 tweets about electric carmaker Tesla in a planned merger that swiftly fell through aroused concerns about whether the billionaire had defrauded investors, but a jury on Friday found that the tycoon had not.
After a three-week trial, the nine-member jury returned a verdict after less than two hours of deliberation.
It signals a significant victory for Musk, who spent approximately eight hours on the witness stand justifying the reasons behind the tweets from August 2018 that served as the trial’s focal point.
The 51-year-old Musk was not present for the quick reading of the judgment, but he unexpectedly showed up earlier on Friday for the closing arguments, which painted different pictures of him.
Shortly after the decision was made, Musk used his newly acquired bully pulpit, Twitter, to express his joy.
Thank happy the populace’s wisdom won out!
Musk tweeted this.
According to Michael Freedman, a former federal prosecutor who is now in private practice working for a law firm that has represented celebrities and business executives, Musk’s choice to take time away from his other obligations to attend the closing arguments even though he wasn’t required to do so may have affected the jurors.
It demonstrates his existence, according to Freedman.
Attorney Nicholas Porritt defended resentful Tesla investors and expressed disappointment after pleading with the jury in his final statements to condemn Musk for his careless actions that threatened to create “anarchy.”
After discussing the verdict with a few jurors who had gathered to speak to him, a dejected Porritt said, “I don’t think this is the kind of conduct we expect from a huge public corporation.”
People are free to reach conclusions about whether something is acceptable.
The jury told Porritt that they thought Musk’s statement that he felt he had secured the funds from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund without a written promise to be plausible during their conversation.
Additionally, they questioned whether the fluctuations in Tesla’s stock price over 10 days in August 2018 encompassed by the case resulted from Musk’s tweets alone.
Musk, the CEO of the electric car manufacturer and the Twitter service he recently acquired for $44 billion, was up against Tesla investors who were represented in a class-action lawsuit.
On August 7, 2018, Musk tweeted that he had secured the funding to take Tesla private, even though it later emerged that he hadn’t booked a firm commitment for the transaction, which would have cost between $20 billion and $70 billion to complete.
A few hours later, Musk tweeted once more to say the agreement would soon be finalized.
At the trial, Musk’s reputation was on the line, along with a fortune that has made him one of the wealthiest individuals on earth.
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