Tag: secured
: Tesla’s Elon Musk found not liable in ‘funding secured’ trial
Elon Musk cleared of fraud in ‘funding secured’ trial
A jury deliberated for about an hour, then found Tesla CEO Elon Musk is “not liable” for losses incurred by investors who accused him of fraud based on his tweets in August 2018 that he was thinking of taking the company private, adding “funding secured,” according to reports from The New York Times and CNBC.
The deliberation was exceptionally quick. While cases can be difficult to compare directly, juries took days to deliberate on verdicts for Elizabeth Holmes and Martin Shkreli, both of whom were on trial for fraud. The decision for Musk took a fraction of that time.
With Musk in attendance, the jury in the billionaire’s securities fraud trial heard closing arguments from an attorney representing a class of Tesla investors who claim…
Jury rules Elon Musk is not liable for shareholder losses after ‘funding secured’ tweets
Elon Musk is off the hook for his 2018 tweets claiming he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private for $420 a share. A jury found that Musk was not liable for Tesla investors’ losses, following a weeks-long trial in San Francisco.
The verdict is a major victory for Musk, who could have been liable for billions of dollars in damages. Musk had testified in federal court that just because he tweets something, it “does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly.” He also argued that he could have used his shares of SpaceX to fund the deal.
The shareholders who brought the class action suit had argued that Musk’s statements about funding were false, and that they lost vast amounts of money due to stock fluctuations in the aftermath of Musk’s tweets. But while the judge in the case concluded that the tweets were “objectively false and reckless,” the jury didn’t find that Musk had deliberately misled the public.
While the verdict ends the years-long saga of the “funding secured” tweets, the posts weren’t entirely without consequences for Musk. He settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018, and stepped down from his role as Tesla board chair as a condition of the settlement. Musk has long decried the SEC settlement and has said he was “forced to admit I lied to save Tesla’s life.”
In a statement to Bloomberg following the verdict, Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said “the jury got it right.” Musk also weighed in — naturally, via tweet — saying he was “deeply appreciative.”
Thank goodness, the wisdom of the people has prevailed!
I am deeply appreciative of the jury’s unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 take-private case.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2023
Update 2/3 7:19 PM ET: Added Elon Musk’s tweet about the verdict.
Elon Musk, Tesla found not liable in ‘funding secured’ tweet lawsuit
Elon Musk was found not liable in a class-action securities fraud trial that centered on the Tesla CEO’s now infamous “funding secured” tweet. After less than 90 minutes of deliberation, a jury announced the verdict in the trial that kicked off three weeks ago in San Francisco. The outcome of the trial sent Tesla shares […]
Elon Musk, Tesla found not liable in ‘funding secured’ tweet lawsuit by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch
Victory for Elon: Jury Says Tesla ‘Funding Secured’ Tweet Wasn’t Fraud
After around an hour of deliberations, a nine-person-jury in San Fransisco sided with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and said the billionaire was not liable for millions of dollars worth of losses investors laid at his feet following his infamous 2018 “funding secured” tweet about Tesla. The decision marks the end of a dramatic …
Therese Poletti’s Tech Tales: Elon Musk shows in ‘funding secured’ trial that he does not live in the real world
Elon Musk defends ‘funding secured’ tweets in Tesla shareholder trial
Elon Musk said that just because he tweets something, it “does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly.” The Tesla chief took the witness stand in a San Francisco federal court to defend himself (and the tweets he made back in 2018) in a lawsuit filed by a group of the automaker’s shareholders. “I think you can absolutely be truthful but can you be comprehensive? Of course not,” he added, regarding Twitter’s character limits. If you’ll recall, Musk famously tweeted in August 2018 that he was “considering taking Tesla private at $420” and that he was already able to secure funding. “Investor support is confirmed,” he said in a follow-up tweet.
The CEO later revealed that he was in talks with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which reportedly expressed interest in Tesla as part of the country’s bid to lessen its reliance on oil. However, the deal didn’t materialize, and he later penned a lengthy post on the automaker’s website to say that it’s staying public.
As CNBC notes, shareholders blamed those “funding secured” tweets for their significant financial losses, leading them to file a class action lawsuit against Musk. Tesla’s shares apparently remained highly volatile in the weeks that followed. The executive, however, downplayed his tweets’ impact and said that they don’t necessarily affect stock prices: “There have been many cases where I thought that if I were to tweet something, the stock price would go down. For example, at one point I tweeted that I thought that, in my opinion, the stock price was too high…and it went went higher, which was, which is, you know, counterintuitive.”
In addition to the shareholder lawsuit, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk over his tweets, calling them “false and misleading statements” that could be constituted as fraud. Musk and Tesla paid $20 million each to settle with the SEC, and the executive had to step down as board chairman. The SEC also required company lawyers to approve any Tesla-related tweet Musk makes — a condition the CEO tried (and failed) to get out of last year.
Aside from defending his tweets, Musk criticized short sellers during his testimony, telling the court that short-selling “should be made illegal.” He added: “It is a means for, in my opinion, bad people on Wall Street to steal money from investors. Not good.” Another piece of information to take away from his time on the witness stand is that nobody can tell Musk to stop tweeting. When lawyers asked him about the advice he got to refrain from posting on Twitter after calling a British cave diver a “pedo guy,” Musk said: “I continued to tweet, yes.”
According to Reuters, Musk only testified for less than 30 minutes and that he’s not done answering lawyers’ questions. He’s expected to take the witness stand again to explain why he wrote the funding tweets and why he insisted that he had Saudi Arabia’s backing.
Musk stands to lose billions in trial over ‘funding secured’ tweet
The question of whether Tesla CEO Elon Musk is a fraud or is just too careless with his words took center stage in a San Francisco court room Wednesday. Under the microscope was Musk’s notorious 2018 tweet that stated funding was “secured” to take Tesla private at a potential value of $420 per share. In a […]
Musk stands to lose billions in trial over ‘funding secured’ tweet by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch
Neil Young: “Have you secured your load correctly?”
To celebrate the 50th-anniversary edition of Harvest, we share an exclusive interview with the man himself. Shakey looks back over an eventful 12 months, accompanied by Crazy Horse and producer Rick Rubin
The post Neil Young: “Have you secured your load correctly?” appeared first on UNCUT.