Musk beats fraud charges; jury rejects investor claims in “funding secured” case

Elon Musk wearing a suit and mask as he leaves a federal courthouse.

Enlarge / Elon Musk leaves court in San Francisco on Friday, February 3, 2023.

Getty Images | Bloomberg

Update at 6:15 pm ET: The jury sided with Elon Musk in a ruling issued about two hours after closing arguments on Friday.

“A jury rejected investor claims that Elon Musk violated federal securities law when he tweeted in 2018 about potentially taking Tesla private, handing a major win to the billionaire chief executive,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “The nine-person jury said the investors who brought the class-action case failed to prove that Mr. Musk hurt them by tweeting about a possible deal.”

Original story: The class-action trial over Elon Musk’s false “funding secured” tweets ended today with closing arguments. A nine-member federal jury now must decide whether Musk and Tesla should have to pay damages to investors who lost money after Musk falsely claimed in August 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private.

“To Elon Musk, if he believes it—or even just thinks about it—then it’s true, no matter how objectively false or exaggerated it may be,” plaintiff’s attorney Nicholas Porritt said today. “Now it may work in his businesses—that’s not an issue for this trial. But it does not work in the securities markets, for public companies. The securities markets have rules governing what you can and cannot say, and one of those basic rules is that what you say must be true and accurate.”

Musk lawyer Alex Spiro blamed investors for their losses today, accusing them of “gambling and looking for lawsuits as insurance.”

Judge Edward Chen already ruled that Musk’s tweets were false “and that Mr. Musk recklessly made those representations.” The first false statement was that he had secured funding to take Tesla private for $420 per share. The second statement ruled false came in Musk’s follow-up tweet that said, “Investor support is confirmed. Only reason why this is not certain is that it’s contingent on a shareholder vote.”

Chen’s written instructions to the jury said they must assume these statements were “untrue” and that “Mr. Musk acted with reckless disregard for whether the statements were true.” But the jury “must still decide whether he knew that the statements were untrue,” and whether the false statements were material facts to investors.

That pre-trial ruling on one of the lawsuit’s key questions led some experts to say Musk is likely to lose the case.

Musk blamed for investors losing $12 billion

This screenshot from page 5 of the jury form will probably make you feel sorry for the jury members.

Enlarge / This screenshot from page 5 of the jury form will probably make you feel sorry for the jury members.

Once the truth came out that Musk hadn’t secured any funding for a going-private transaction, and Musk abandoned the idea because investors didn’t support it, “Tesla stock prices crashed and investors lost $12 billion in damages,” Porritt said. (That was the number offered by a plaintiff’s expert witness during the trial.)

Musk argued on the witness stand that he believed funding was secured from the Saudi Arabia government’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) even though he didn’t have a signed deal.

Spiro acknowledged in closing arguments today that “funding secured” was “technically inaccurate” but that the statement wasn’t really important to investors. “This whole case is built on bad word choice,” he said.

Deliberations could be complex for the jury in US District Court for the Northern District of California, particularly if they side with plaintiffs. If jurors find Musk is liable, they have to determine the “amount of artificial inflation” on Tesla stock proved by plaintiffs on each day from August 7 to August 17, 2018.

The jury also has to decide on any potential liability for members of the Tesla board of directors, including Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk. If both Musk and Tesla directors are found liable, the jury must decide on “each Defendant’s share of responsibility for Plaintiff’s losses” with the total adding up to 100 percent.

You can read the full 10-page verdict form at this link. The jury was selected on January 17 andopening arguments were the next day.

Musk defense: Funding was no problem

Plaintiffs portrayed Musk as a “rich liar” and “fire-breathing dragon,” Spiro said. “They’re trying to condition you and distract you. ‘Bad tweet, bad tweet, fraud tweet.’ Just because it’s a bad tweet doesn’t make it fraud,” he said.

Defending Musk’s tweets, Spiro said that “‘funding secured’ was just this concept that some party had money and expressed interest, and that was indisputably true.” Spiro said funding “had never been a problem” in previous deals because “investors clamored for the opportunity to invest with Elon Musk. And, of course, he had his own wealth to finance a going-private [transaction].”

The going-private proposal wasn’t halted because of a lack of funding, Spiro said. Musk stopped pursuing the idea after it became clear “that the shareholders wanted to stay public,” Spiro said.

Musk’s “funding secured” tweet said in full, “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” Spiro argued that the “am considering” part of the tweet was more important and that “every reasonable investor was waiting for more information.”

Note: This article have been indexed to our site. We do not claim legitimacy, ownership or copyright of any of the content above. To see the article at original source Click Here

Related Posts
Quiz: What is the most searched word on Microsoft's search engine Bing? thumbnail

Quiz: What is the most searched word on Microsoft's search engine Bing?

「Yahoo!でググれ」ですね。Microsoftが提供する検索エンジンかつポータルサイト「Bing」。ここで検索されているトップワードってなんだと思いますか? たぶんすでにみなさん勘づいていると思いますが…、そう「Google」なんですって。なんとも皮肉なワードが明かされたのは、シリアスな裁判の場。Google親会社であるAlphabetとEU欧州委員会は独占禁止法をめぐってバトルを繰り広げていますが、そこでAlphabet側弁護士チームが論じたのが、ユーザーは強制されているわけではなく、Googleを自ら選んで使っているということ。その証拠として提出されたのが、Bingの検索トップワードとしての「Google」です。AndroidにChromeがデフォルトでインストールされている=Chromeのデフォ検索であるGoogleを使わざるを得ない状況になっているというEU側の言い分にたいして、Bingユーザーなんてわざわざ「Google」とBingでググって、Google検索使っているじゃないかと。選択肢があるうえで、Googleを選んでいるじゃないかと主張したのです。検索トップワードは、SEOによる統計データを取り扱うAhrefs提供のもので、Bingの検索ワードグローバルトップが「Google」。そこから「YouTube」、「Facebook」、「Gmail」、「Amazon」と続いています。しかし、これらのワードがトップなのには納得の理由があります。例えば、Amazonで買い物しようとした時、YouTubeを見ようとした時、ブラウザのアドレスバー兼検索バーにワードを打ち込みますよね。「YouTube.com」とタイプすれば、検索ではなくYouTubeトップに飛びます。一方「YouTube」とタイプすると、「YouTube」という言葉の検索ページが表示されます。たぶんですけど、ほとんどのユーザーは検索したいんじゃなくて、そのサービスのトップページに行きたいんですよね。でも、「.com」やら「.jp」までタイプしない人が多いと。The Vergeの「その結果、検索ワードとして上位にきてしまう」という解説は非常に的確です。多くのユーザーはBingではなくGoogleでググりたい…で、「Google」ですよ。これで言うと、つまり多くのユーザーはGoogleという言葉を検索したいのではなく、Googleトップページに行きたいってことなんです。イコールBingではなくGoogleでググりたいということなんですよね。これだと、弁護士チームの言う選択肢を持ったうえでGoogleを選んでいるというのはまさにその通り。しかし、逆にいえば、それこそが検索市場を独占してきた証拠であるともとれるわけで。Bingがデフォルト検索エンジンに設定されているのは、もちろんMicrosoftのブラウザEdge。Edgeは大幅アップデートでChromiumuベースになっており、気になっている人・乗り換えた人もいると思います。もちろんWindowsだけでなく、macOS、Android、iOSでも利用できるブラウザなので、今後もっと広がる可能性はあるかと。正直、どこまで幅を広げてくるのか楽しみでもあります。いっそ、Bingがもっと活躍(?)してくれたら、Googleも独占禁止法に悩まされなくなるのかもしれませんけれど…。Source: The Verge
Read More
The Reason Ford Won't Build A Mustang GT500 Convertible thumbnail

The Reason Ford Won’t Build A Mustang GT500 Convertible

NATALLIA B/Shutterstock The original Shelby GT500 rolled off the production floor in 1967. Buyers could get this beast equipped with a 355 hp, 428 cubic-inch Police Interceptor engine (referred to as the Cobra Le Mans engine) with two 600-CFM Holley carburetors. It was considered to be the more passenger-car friendly engine. Or, for $1,000 more,…
Read More
The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 5000 Chagall is expected next year thumbnail

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 5000 Chagall is expected next year

AMD-ov Ryzen Threadripper 5000 procesor je u fazi razvoja već neko vreme. Iako je kompanija nekoliko puta odlagala objavu čipa, sada su s pojavile nove informacije da će procesor ipak biti objavljen.Greymon55 je uspešno izvukao informacije iz AMD-ove dokumentacije, koje ukazuju na to da će procesor biti predstavljen sledeće godine kako je i planirano.Kodno ime…
Read More
Here are all the trailers from Summer Game Fest 2023 thumbnail

Here are all the trailers from Summer Game Fest 2023

Canadian Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest 2023 kick-off event showed off a variety of trailers for upcoming games launching in the near future. Summer Game Fest showcased gameplay, exclusive game reveals, release dates and more, including Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown World, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Sand Land, Alan Wake 2 and more. Here
Read More
Index Of News
Consider making some contribution to keep us going. We are donation based team who works to bring the best content to the readers. Every donation matters.
Donate Now

Subscription Form

Liking our Index Of News so far? Would you like to subscribe to receive news updates daily?

Total
0
Share