New York:
A 2018 tweet by Elon Musk in which he claimed he had secured the funding to take Tesla private was deemed “false and misleading” by a judge, according to documents filed by investors suing his electric car company.
Shareholders have accused Tesla of securities fraud over its stock market losses in the wake of the Aug. 7, 2018 tweet, which caused the stock price to fluctuate wildly for several days.
In a court filed late Friday, plaintiffs asked the federal judge in charge of the case, Edward Chen, to order Musk to stop saying publicly that he was “securing” the funding to take Tesla private for $420 a year. stock, as he reiterated Thursday.
In the past, the billionaire entrepreneur has said he was in talks with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund at the time and was confident he would make a deal. But no agreement was ever announced.
According to the filing, Chen recently concluded in an undisclosed injunction that Musk’s statements were “false and misleading” and “reckless and with full awareness of the facts he misrepresented in his tweets.”
Prosecutors accused Musk of participating in “a high-profile public campaign to present a contradictory and false story related to his August 7, 2018 tweets” — which could affect any jurors assigned to the lawsuit who later find out. year takes place.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, the US market regulator, also accused him of fraud in the wake of the tweets.
He eventually agreed to a deal to settle the charges, requiring Tesla’s lawyers to review all social media posts with information deemed “material” to shareholders.
He also paid a $20 million fine and stepped down as chairman of Tesla.
Musk, who has revealed a hostile $43 billion takeover bid on Twitter, said Thursday that he felt compelled to make the deal with the SEC to save Tesla.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)