Elon Musk misled Twitter investors while trying to get out of acquisition, jury says

A civil jury in California determined on Friday that Elon Musk deliberately misled investors during his attempt to withdraw from the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022. Musk had claimed via Twitter that the platform was plagued by an excessive number of bots, a statement he used to justify his desire to back out of the deal. This led to a lawsuit from Twitter aimed at compelling him to complete the acquisition. On the platform, which Musk has since rebranded as X, he tweeted, "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users." Following this statement, Twitter's stock experienced an 8% decline. Investor Giuseppe Pampena initiated legal action against Musk on behalf of other Twitter shareholders who sold their shares between May 13, the date of Musk's tweet, and October 4, when the acquisition was finalized. Pampena's lawsuit posited that Musk’s tweets were intended to instill uncertainty about Twitter's stability, thereby artificially lowering its stock price and resulting in losses for those who sold during that timeframe. While Musk's legal team contended that he was voicing genuine concerns about bot activity on the platform, the jury sided with Pampena's claims. The potential financial repercussions for Musk remain uncertain, but Pampena’s attorney indicated that damages could amount to as much as $2.6 billion, as reported by CNBC. Despite this, Musk's financial standing appears robust, with Bloomberg estimating his net worth at over $660 billion. This ruling marks another chapter in Musk's contentious relationship with the legal system regarding his social media statements. In 2018, he faced scrutiny from the SEC after suggesting he had secured funding to take Tesla private, a claim that led to allegations of securities fraud. Musk ultimately testified that he was not joking but genuinely believed he could execute the buyout at a significant premium. Following the acquisition of Twitter, Musk rebranded the platform to X and subsequently merged it with his AI venture, xAI. The newly formed entity was valued at approximately $113 billion, and last month, SpaceX also merged with xAI, a move Musk attributed to his vision of establishing data centers in space.