New York
—
A California jury on Friday largely sided with Twitter shareholders who accused billionaire Elon Musk of making false statements and intentionally driving down the social media company’s stock ahead of his $44 billion acquisition in 2022. But they absolved Musk of claims of engaging in a “scheme” to defraud investors.
The decision resolves a civil class action lawsuit filed by a group of Twitter shareholders against Musk in October 2022 — weeks before he took control of the company. The weekslong trial saw Musk forced to take the stand in a San Francisco federal courthouse to defend the tumultuous takeover.
Musk first agreed to buy Twitter in April 2022 but then spent months fighting to get out of the purchase before ultimately completing the acquisition.
The shareholders accused Musk of deliberately driving down Twitter’s stock price with tweets and public statements in that interim period, suggesting the deal would not go through. Plaintiffs, watching the stock decline in response to Musk’s comments and fearing the deal would not be completed, sold their stock, ultimately missing out when the acquisition was finalized.
Plaintiffs had sought unspecified financial damages.
It was not immediately clear what amount the jury would award following its Friday decision.
–This is a developing story and will be updated.
