Elon Musk to speak again in court in Tesla case
2023.01.24 08:37
Elon Musk to speak again in court in Tesla case
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – After telling a jury on Monday that he had secured financial support in 2018 to take his electric car company Tesla (NASDAQ:), Elon Musk will take the stand on Tuesday in San Francisco. private inc.
Musk is responding to accusations that he deceived investors by tweeting on August 7, 2018, that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 per share and that “investor support is confirmed.”
Musk told a jury on Monday, referring to the aerospace company where he is also chief executive officer, “With SpaceX stock alone, I felt funding was secured” for the buyout.
Later, he said that he decided not to take Tesla private because he didn’t have enough investors’ support and wanted to avoid a long process.
The trial examines whether or not the second-richest person in the world can be held liable for crossing a line, as well as Musk’s propensity to share his sometimes irreverent opinions via Twitter.
After Musk’s tweets in 2018, Tesla’s stock price shot up, but it soon became clear that the buyout would not happen. As a result, investors claim to have lost millions of dollars.
A nine-member panel will decide whether and by how much the Tesla CEO exaggerated the benefits of the buyout and artificially increased the share price of the company.
According to Musk’s testimony, when he tweeted about the financing, he said, “not that it will happen, but that I am thinking about it,” and it was his “opinion” that funding was secured.
Musk testified on Monday that he met with representatives of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, on July 31, 2018, at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California. He also stated that he could have funded the deal through SpaceX.
He said the Saudi representatives made it clear they would do whatever it took to make a buyout happen, despite the fact that there was no discussion of a takeover price.
According to Musk, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the fund, changed his mind about taking Tesla private later.
