As attorneys gave opening remarks at a trial centered on a Tesla buyout that never took place, Elon Musk was portrayed as a "liar" who endangered the savings of "regular people", according to a report by AP.
(Photo : CARINA JOHANSEN/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks up as he addresses guests at the Offshore Northern Seas 2022 (ONS) meeting in Stavanger, Norway on August 29, 2022.
Portraits of Musk
Attorneys for the opposing sides presented vastly different portraits of Musk to the jury. The three-week trial will focus on the billionaire's tweets from August 2018.
The tweets claimed that Musk had secured the funding to take Tesla private just when the company's stock was tanking due to manufacturing issues.
The possibility of a $72 billion takeover sparked a stock price surge for the corporation, but it quickly came to a stop a week later when it became clear he lacked the resources to complete the transaction.
Tesla shareholders filed a lawsuit against him, claiming that if he had not raised the possibility of buying the firm for $420 per share, Tesla shares would not have fluctuated so greatly.
In the class-action lawsuit, Glen Littleton and other Tesla stockholders' attorney Nicholas Porritt denounced Musk as a "liar".
The rise in Tesla's stock following the tweet, according to Musk's attorney Alex Spiro, was primarily due to investors' confidence in Musk's capacity to accomplish amazing feats, such as creating the largest electric automobile in the world while also managing SpaceX.
Spiro also said that Musk has already discussed taking Tesla private with officials from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.
The lawyer claims that Musk did not plan to publish his 2018 tweets and that it was a split-second decision to be open and honest about the negotiations with the Saudi fund.
Musk's 2018 Tweets
Musk tweeted that the buyout's finance was "secured" and that a transaction was about to be finalized.
The first witness called was Littleton, a 71-year-old investor from Kansas City, Missouri.
He claimed that Musk's assertion on the financing concerned him since he had invested in Tesla to reward him for his conviction that the shares will eventually be worth much more than $420.
According to AP's report, he claimed to have mitigated his losses by selling the majority of his shares, but the value of his Tesla portfolio still fell by 75%.
Securities officials were made aware of Musk's tweets in 2018, and they came to the conclusion that they were unlawful and that he was lying. The billionaire was ordered in a settlement to pay $40 million.
The trial's judge, US District Judge Edward Chen, decided that the shareholders' attorneys cannot bring up that deal during the trial, as per AP. The class action lawsuit trial has only started and will last for three weeks.
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