A judicial victory … Musk escapes charges of using Twitter to mislead investors in Tesla 

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 judicial victory for Musk

Billionaire Elon Musk was acquitted by a jury on Friday, February 3, 2023, of liability for losses incurred by investors in a fraud trial over a 2018 tweet he wrote claiming he had enough funds to take Tesla off the stock exchange, according to AFP.

The case dates back to August 2018, when Musk tweeted that he wanted to take Tesla off the stock exchange, because he had enough funding to do so, and this caused sharp fluctuations in the company’s share price for days.

Musk has not committed fraud

The jurors deliberated for about two hours, before returning to the courtroom in San Francisco, to announce that they unanimously agreed that neither Musk nor the Tesla board of directors committed fraud through and after the tweet.

Musk , who tried in vain to move the trial to Texas, tweeted on the pretext that the California jury would be biased against him: “Thank God, the wisdom of the people has prevailed!” “I greatly appreciate the jury’s unanimous finding of not guilty in Tesla Case 420 to delist the company,” he added.

Attorney Nicholas Porritt, who represents Glenn Littleton and other Tesla investors, argued in court that the case was built in order to ensure that the rich and powerful adhere to the same rules of financial markets as everyone else.

“Elon Musk posted false tweets with a reckless disregard for their truth,” Porritt told the nine-juror panel during closing argument. Porritt also cited expert testimony that estimated Musk’s funding claims, which turned out to be untrue, cost investors billions of dollars in total, and that he Musk and Tesla’s board of directors must pay compensation.

But Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, managed to respond that the billionaire may have misworded his hasty tweet, but he didn’t fool anyone.

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