Jury finds Elon Musk guilty of defrauding Twitter investors

A San Francisco court jury concluded today that Elon Musk intentionally misled investors in an attempt to drive down the price of Twitter Inc. before purchasing the company. Here are the details.

Musk, in trouble for billions of dollars

As reported by Bloomberg:

Jurors in federal court in San Francisco determined Friday that Musk intentionally misled Twitter shareholders when he tweeted that the social network, now called X, had too many fake accounts and tried to back out of the deal. The jury rejected two of the four allegations of fraud.

In 2022, Elon Musk made an unsolicited offer to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, valuing the company at approximately $44 billion. At the time, Twitter Inc.’s market capitalization was approximately $36 billion.

In the weeks and months that followed, Musk tried to back away of the agreement several times, alleging that Twitter had significantly underestimated the number of bots on the platform. It finally completed the acquisition after Twitter. defendant to enforce the agreement.

After all was said and done, Musk was sued once again, this time accused of defrauding investors by publicly disparaging the company in an attempt to drive down its stock price. As Bloomberg noted“In July 2022, shares hit a low of $32.52, 40% less than Musk’s purchase price.”

Today, a jury sided with the plaintiffs, potentially putting Musk on the hook for what the investors’ lawyer estimates could be as much as $2.6 billion.

The eight-member panel calculated how much Musk’s statements lowered the company’s stock price for each trading day over a period of about five months. The amount of damages to be paid to individual investors, which could total hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, will be determined at a later date when shareholders file their claims.

Musk did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment, but it is reasonable to expect him to appeal the decision.

Update, 7:56 pm ET: According to the WSJMusk’s lawyers have confirmed that he will appeal.

read Bloombergthe full report of today’s decision, follow this link.

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