On Friday, a jury in California determined that Elon Musk misled investors Through public statements on Twitter that drove down the company’s stock price prior to Musk’s purchase of the service. Because this is a class-action lawsuit, Musk will likely owe a large number of investors for damages — payouts that could run into the billions.
Ahead of Musk’s latest purchase of the social media platform, he made a series of comments about the platform itself and while appearing as a guest on a podcast, mostly focusing on the alleged proliferation of bot accounts on the platform. That fueled fears that the deal wouldn’t go through and sent Twitter’s stock price down, prompting some investors to sell off their shares during the period.
Some of those investors have launched a class-action lawsuit, claiming that the statements misled them and that Musk intentionally made them as part of a larger scheme. The jury rejected arguments about this larger scheme, but found Musk liable for the tweets.
Although the damage has not yet been determined, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said that in the end It reaches 2.6 billion dollars.
