Jury agrees that Musk’s tweets during Twitter acquisition misled investors

On Friday, a California jury determined that Elon Musk had deceived investors on Twitter through public statements that depressed the company’s stock price ahead of Musk’s purchase of the service. Because this is a class-action lawsuit, Musk will likely owe compensation to a wide range of investors, payments that could ultimately reach billions of dollars.

In the lead-up to Musk’s eventual purchase of the social media platform, he made a series of comments on the platform itself and, while appearing as a guest on a podcast, focused heavily on the alleged prevalence of bot accounts on the platform. This raised fears that the deal would not go through and depressed Twitter’s share price, causing some investors to sell shares at a depressed price during this period.

Several of those investors filed a lawsuit that was certified as a class action, alleging that the statements defrauded them and that Musk intentionally made them as part of a larger scheme. The jury rejected arguments about this broader plan, but found Musk responsible for the tweets.

While damages have yet to be determined, plaintiffs’ attorneys say they could ultimately reach 2.6 billion dollars.