The jurors quickly reached this verdict on Friday after three weeks of a trial triggered by complaints from investors.
Elon Musk was found not guilty of fraud on Friday by a California jury charged with determining whether tweets claiming he would take his company Tesla off the stock market in 2018 violated stock market laws.
The jurors quickly reached this verdict on Friday after three weeks of a trial triggered by the complaint of investors who felt they had been harmed by the messages of the multi-entrepreneur.
An “irresponsible” action by the entrepreneur
The latter had surprised the markets on August 7, 2018 by saying on Twitter that he wanted to withdraw his automotive group from the Stock Exchange at a price of 420 dollars per share, or 23% more than the closing price the day before, then by ensuring that the funding was “secured”. The stock surged, ending up 11% on the day, before declining in the following days.
Investors then betting on a drop in the action, “short-sellers”, believed that Elon Musk had broken stock market laws by presenting misleading information that pushed the action up, and demanded compensation.
The judge in charge of the case, Edward Chen, had already concluded that the tweets were indeed misleading and that the entrepreneur had acted “irresponsibly”.
Musk said he “never” tried to mislead investors
Jurors had to decide whether the tweets had fraudulently inflated the action and, if so, how much that may have affected the plaintiffs. They also then had to determine whether members of Tesla’s board of directors could be held responsible.
By answering the first questions in the negative, the jurors quickly exonerated Elon Musk and Tesla.
At the helm at the start of the trial, the multi-billionaire had assured that he had “never” sought to deceive investors. He really thought he had access to enough financing, even if it meant selling shares in his other company SpaceX, for example, he said, while acknowledging that he had no firm commitments from partners.
