A federal judge has ruled that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 tweets about securing financing to take the company private were false.
A federal judge has ruled that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 tweets about securing financing to take the company private were false, according to the billionaire suing over tweets by Tesla investors.
The filing said the court ruled on April 1 that Musk’s 2018 tweets were “false and misleading.” “He said that he negligently made statements with knowledge of his lies,” the court said.
Investors in the electric car maker called for U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen to block the celebrity entrepreneur from “public campaigns to present a contradictory and false narrative” about his 2018 tweets, said filing Friday. .
Musk claimed on Thursday that the funding to take Tesla private in 2018 had in fact been secured. He settled with US securities regulators that the agency made false statements, paid fines, and agreed to have a lawyer approve some of his tweets before posting them.
That April 1 verdict was not listed in the court.
The issues will be at the center of a May jury trial in which investors are seeking damages over tweets.
The filing said that Musk has “used his fame and notoriety to sway public opinion in his favor, fighting in the press.”
Musk’s latest comments run the risk of confusing potential jurors and biasing the jury’s decision on the amount of damages done by Musk, it said.
Musk has been trying to void his agreement with the SEC, accusing the agency of bothering him with the investigation.
Musk and Tesla’s lawyer Alex Spiro insisted again on Saturday that it was true that Musk was considering taking Tesla private in 2018 and that he had the financing for that move. He said, “About half a decade later, all that’s left is random plaintiffs’ lawyers trying to make a buck and others trying to block that truth from coming to light, all to the detriment of free speech.” ,” They said.
The case is of Tesla Inc. Securities Litigation, US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 18-04865.
(Reporting by Hyunju Jin; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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