San Francisco. Billionaire businessman Elon Musk has appeared at a court hearing in a case related to his “misleading” tweets regarding the acquisition of his electric car company, Tesla. The issue is related to his two tweets made by Musk on August 7, 2018. In both tweets, Musk said he had arranged enough money to buy Tesla.
However, the deal never materialized. Tesla shareholders then sued Musk, saying his tweet cost them huge losses. Wearing a black suit, Mr. Musk appeared in civil court in San Francisco. His attorney requested that the lawsuit be transferred to Tesla headquarters in Texas, but the court denied this. A nine-person jury will decide whether the tweet caused substantial harm to Tesla shareholders over his 10-day period. In this case, Musk admits that his planned purchase never materialized.
Musk tweeted that he had “raised” $72 billion to buy Tesla. At the time, Tesla was struggling with production problems. After this, he tweeted in another tweet that a deal was about to be made in this regard, but no such deal has been made.
Musk, which bought Twitter last year for $44 billion, told court on Friday that tweets are the “most democratic way” to communicate with investors. “I care a lot about individual investors,” he said when asked by shareholder advocate Nicholas Porritt. However, Musk also said that due to Twitter’s character limit, it is not possible to discuss the matter in detail on the platform. A federal judge has already ruled that both of Musk’s tweets are false. At the hearing, the jury will determine whether Mr. Musk intentionally deceived investors and caused them to lose money.
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