A federal jury in California found Friday that tech tycoon Elon Musk misled Twitter shareholders, driving down the company’s share price as he was poised to buy it in a $44 billion deal.
The verdict in the class action securities lawsuit means the world’s richest person could be ordered to pay billions of dollars, according to damages calculated by jurors.
Minutes after the judgment was announced, the entrepreneur’s lawyers informed AFP that their client would appeal the decision, characterizing it as a “setback.”
After a three-week trial in a San Francisco federal court — which included in-person testimony from Musk — the jury found that two tweets posted in May 2022 by the Tesla and SpaceX CEO contained false statements responsible for a plunge in Twitter’s share price.
Investor Giuseppe Pampena had filed the suit on behalf of people who sold Twitter shares between mid-May and early October 2022.
Musk acquired the social media platform in late October 2022 and later renamed it X.
Jurors agreed that Musk violated a securities rule that bars false and misleading statements that sink a stock price, in this case, that of Twitter, the verdict form showed.
An attorney for the plaintiffs estimated the damages at about $2.6 billion.
Musk, who has a near-constant presence on X, did not immediately react to the verdict.
