The judge in a California class-action lawsuit has questioned if Elon Musk’s tweets in 2018 about taking the company private were “entirely truthful.”
The tweets, of course, were sent in August 2018. The first one was:
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
Then, a second tweet later that day read:
Investor support is confirmed. Only reason why this is not certain is that it’s contingent on a shareholder vote. https://t.co/bIH4Td5fED
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
The plaintiffs in the case claim they lost millions of dollars after shares of Tesla (TSLA) dropped following the tweets.
The two lawyers in the case argued over the wording of the tweets and if the tweets were what moved the market.
Lawyers for Tesla insist that Musk’s interest in taking the company private moved the market rather than the CEO’s statement on Twitter.
They further argued that the tweet meant that funding would not be a problem if Tesla decided to go private.
While on the other side, lawyers for the class-action argued it should be left for a jury to decide when it calculates how much investors are owed in damages.
United States District Judge Edward Chen noted that:
“We don’t know which portion of that sentence was the one that really moved the market.” (via CourtHouseNews)
The Judge took both arguments under submission, but he did not indicate when he would make a ruling.
There is no timeline for a decision on these arguments.
