Last Update: January 18, 2023, 12:42 pm IST
San Francisco, United States
Elon Musk is being sued by shareholders claiming his tweets sent the EV company’s share price on a rollercoaster ride that cost them billions of dollars (Image: Reuters)
Musk is currently facing trial over a series of tweets in 2018 where he claimed he was ready to take Tesla private, causing an uproar in the stock market.
Jury selection began Tuesday in a California courtroom on whether Elon Musk fraud with two 2018 tweets saying it was ready to take Tesla private.
The tweets sent the Tesla share price on a rollercoaster ride and Musk is being sued by shareholders, who say the tycoon acted negligently and cost them billions of dollars.
The trial is expected to last three weeks and comes at a sensitive time for Musk, who will likely be called to testify.
Tesla’s share price has tumbled over the past year, with investors worried about Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the social media platform where the billionaire focuses much of his attention.
Shareholders filed a lawsuit against Musk in 2018 for allegedly spending billions of dollars with a tweet that called for “secured funding” for a project to buy the publicly traded electric automaker.
In a second tweet, Musk said that “investor support has been confirmed,” and that the deal was only awaiting a vote by shareholders.
“Plaintiffs allege that these Tweets were materially false and artificially influenced the price of Tesla stock and other securities,” US District Court Judge Edward Chen summarized the case for potential jurors.
Musk’s short tweets in 2018 have already been investigated by US authorities.
The country’s stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, ordered that Musk step down as Tesla’s chairman of the board and that the company and Musk pay a fine of $20 million each.
Musk denies he was a fraud and his lawyers are expected to call witnesses to his plans at the time, including testimony from Musk’s friend and fellow billionaire Larry Ellison.
Picking jurors began after Chen last week denied a request by Musk to move the proceedings to the southern state of Texas, where Musk has moved Tesla’s headquarters.
twitter ban request
Lawyers representing Musk argued that he would be denied a fair trial in San Francisco, where Twitter is based.
On Tuesday, the court reviewed responses to a questionnaire from dozens of potential jurors that included their opinions of Musk.
One potential juror admitted that he might not be fair. “There’s also the billionaire aspect. I’m not a big fan of those,” he said.
Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro asked those up for jury selection to remain “open minded,” even though they will hear the accused’s version first.
He also asked the court not to bring up “recent events on Twitter”.
After taking over the social media site in October, Musk fired more than half of its 7,500 employees and retained its content moderation policies, including unblocking former US President Donald Trump’s account.
The CEO’s attorneys argued in the filing, “For the past several months, the local media have saturated this district with biased and negative stories about Mr. Musk, which have fostered … extreme partisan bias in the jury pool.” “
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)