Tesla and Elon Musk face federal trial for tweeting about’secured Financing’

Tesla CEO Jeff Bezos is being sued by shareholders under federal securities law. They claim that his 2018 tweets were misleading and false, and caused them financial loss and damage. The tweets were already ruled invalid by the court. Investors want Musk and Tesla board members to be held responsible for the damages.

This is Musk’s latest challenge, months after he became CEO of Twitter and took over another tech company. His fortune has declined since then and his fortune has decreased. a favourGuinness World Records has maintained the “worst wealth loss in history” at around $200 billion. He was ranked second among the most wealthy people in the globe. According to Forbes magazine.

Musk sent out a now infamous tweet on August 7, 2018: “Thinking of taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” And he followed it up with a subsequent post reading, “Investor support confirmed. Only reason it isn’t confirmed is because it’s contingent on shareholder vote” — the other tweet referenced in court documents.

Musk has defended himself against accusations that his tweets were fake. say Last year, he secured funding at the time — from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which Musk said was “unequivocally committed” to taking Tesla private. Musk had done so before that point. It was settled with the Securities and Exchange CommissionIn this case, he was fined $20m and he relinquished the Tesla chairmanship, which was fined $20m.

The shareholder case court ordered the jury to assume that Musk’s statements about “investor backing confirmed” and “funding secure” were false.

The lawsuit was filed in 2018 and is a class action lawsuit by Tesla investors who claim that they lost large sums of money following Tesla’s stock price fall. This lawsuit stems from the tweet “secured financing” and subsequent investigation by SEC.

The share price rise cost Tesla short sellers hundreds and millions of dollars. “When they were then forced into covering their positions by purchasing Tesla securities at artificially high prices,” the original 2018 complaint stated.

Musk and his attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment.

In the run-up to the trial, Musk — who recently moved from California to Texas — made an unsuccessful effort to move the trial from San Francisco to Texas’ Western District, arguing that the media coverage and publicity surrounding Musk’s business moves was “biased,” the jury assembled. Since taking over Twitter, Musk has fired more than half the 7,500 employees.

Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro was in court Tuesday morning. He raised concerns about the fairness of some jurors. He tried to move some jurors from the grand jury block for cross examination to avoid affecting other members of the panel. Judge Edward M. Chen agreed that he would separate to cross-examine those who held strong opinions.

Musk was criticised by potential jurors, who used words such as “irrational”, and “arrogant”, to describe him. To determine their suitability for the committee, each potential juror was questioned individually.

The jury selection process revealed just how heated the Musk debate has been since the polarizing tech personality assumed control of the social media platform.

Some mentioned how their perceptions about Musk had changed. They cited news articles they had read, knowledge about layoffs on Twitter, as well as Musk’s tweets.

After Musk’s tweets were deemed “most” ill-informed and “for shock values,” Spiro asked a prospective juror a series of questions, according to court testimony.

Spiro stated that the case was about a tweet and a tweet about his thoughts at the time he sent the tweet. “If someone entered the situation with the opinion of a few tweets being uninformed about shock values and the case was about that, the concern would…be…that they could influence a little bit – implied.”

Out of 50 potential jurors, less than 10 were subjected to cross-examination.

One prospective juror, who in cross-examination expressed a negative opinion of Musk, stated that “His personality has changed over the past few years.”

These potential jurors pointed to layoffs on Twitter and their objection that Musk allowing some who promote hate speech on Twitter. Musk impulseTo keep Tesla’s manufacturing plant in California open despite California coronavirus restrictions.

A potential juror from a software company that deals directly with electric vehicle manufacturers raised concerns during jury selection about the possible negative impact on the company he works for.

Spiro demanded that certain topics be removed from the plaintiffs’ op-ed statements. He cited Musk’s disputes at the SEC and “recent Twitter events” as reasons for wanting to avoid the trial being affected by Musk’s current public image. Spiro’s terms were generally accepted by the plaintiffs.

Musk was further harmed by the 2018 tweets. There were concerns about Musk’s fitness to lead Tesla and his propensity to controversy. This led to further decline in the share price.

Musk’s legal and financial problems surfaced a year later. have been solved in quick succession. In quick succession, Tesla stock rose in late 2019 and 2020. Musk emerged from the economic devastation caused by the pandemic as the richest person on the planet and the CEO of the most valuable auto manufacturer.

Chen reads to potential jurors a list of potential witnesses that includes Musk’s circle members and people who worked closely with him at Tesla.

The list includes Musk; his brother Kimball is on the Tesla board. Musk’s close friend, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison; former Tesla CEO Deepak Ahuja; James Murdoch who is a Tesla board member and one of the sons media mogul Rupert Murdoch.