“And those tweets caused investors harm, lots of harm. That is all that is necessary to find liability here.”
Musk had testified earlier that he thought he could get the Saudi money. Even without it, he believed he could take Tesla private with his own wealth. And he would have put have been willing to put in his stake in SpaceX, to fund the deal.
“I think I heard [Porritt] say that you should assume Elon Musk committed fraud. Well, he didn’t. Not even close,” Musk’s attorney said.
“Elon Musk was considering taking Tesla private, and he could have. Funding was not an issue, that is the fundamental truth, which will never change.”
“Stocks move all the time for lots of reasons,” Spiro argued. “They want to punish Musk for using two words, but they move all the time.”
Life goes on for the busy billionaire
It was reported that before the jury came back with the verdict, Musk wasn’t concerned about the case, because he was tweeting about Twitter.
Besides running Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter, Elon Musk also filed in June 2022 appealing the “forced settlement” in his case against the SEC. Musk had agreed to pay a $40 million settlement to the SEC over the 2018 disputed Tweets.
