New York
—
A California jury on Friday largely sided with Twitter shareholders who accused billionaire Elon Musk of making false statements and deliberately driving down the social media firm’s inventory ahead of his $44 billion acquisition in 2022. But they absolved Musk of claims of participating in a “scheme” to defraud buyers.
The determination resolves a civil class motion lawsuit filed by a gaggle of Twitter shareholders in opposition to Musk in October 2022 — weeks earlier than he took control of the corporate. The weekslong trial noticed Musk pressured to take the stand in a San Francisco federal courthouse to defend the tumultuous takeover.
Musk first agreed to purchase Twitter in April 2022 however then spent months preventing to get out of the acquisition earlier than in the end finishing the acquisition.
The shareholders accused Musk of intentionally driving down Twitter’s inventory value with tweets and public statements in that interim interval, suggesting the deal wouldn’t undergo. Plaintiffs, watching the inventory decline in response to Musk’s feedback and fearing the deal wouldn’t be accomplished, offered their inventory, in the end lacking out when the acquisition was finalized.
Plaintiffs had sought unspecified monetary damages.
It was not instantly clear what quantity the jury would award following its Friday determination.
–This is a growing story and shall be up to date.