US Jury Finds Elon Musk Liable For Misleading Twitter Investors In $44billion Deal
US Jury Finds Elon Musk Liable For Misleading Twitter Investors In $44billion Deal
The verdict, delivered on Friday after a three-week trial at a federal court in California.
A federal jury in San Francisco has found billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk liable for misleading shareholders of Twitter during his controversial $44 billion takeover of the social media company.
The verdict, delivered on Friday after a three-week trial at a federal court in California, concluded that Musk issued false and misleading statements in tweets posted in May 2022, which contributed to a drop in Twitter’s share price at a critical stage of the acquisition process, according to sky news.
The lawsuit, filed as a class action by investor Giuseppe Pampena, represented shareholders who sold their Twitter stock between mid-May and early October 2022 — a period marked by uncertainty surrounding Musk’s intentions to proceed with the deal.
Jurors agreed that Musk violated US securities laws prohibiting deceptive statements capable of influencing market prices. Legal representatives for the plaintiffs estimated potential damages at approximately $2.6 billion, exposing Musk to a significant financial penalty if upheld.
Central to the case were Musk’s public claims that the acquisition was temporarily “on hold” pending verification of the number of fake or “bot” accounts on the platform. Plaintiffs argued that these statements were strategically deployed to depress Twitter’s valuation, giving Musk leverage to renegotiate the purchase price or abandon the deal altogether.
At the time, Musk was also facing pressure from declining shares in Tesla, raising concerns about how he would finance the acquisition without offloading more of his holdings.
Despite initial attempts to exit the agreement, Musk ultimately completed the acquisition in October 2022 after Twitter initiated legal action to enforce the deal. He later rebranded the platform as X.
Musk’s legal team has since pushed back against the ruling, describing it as a temporary setback and confirming plans to appeal.
The judgment marks a rare courtroom loss for Musk, who has built a reputation for surviving high-profile legal battles. Notably, he was cleared earlier the same day in a separate defamation case in Texas and previously won a similar shareholder lawsuit in 2023 linked to his 2018 tweets about taking Tesla private.
As of early March, Forbes estimates Musk remains the world’s richest individual, with a net worth of about $839 billion, largely tied to his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
