Tesla shares: Elon Musk said jurors in SAN FRANCISCO on Monday that his 2018 tweet jokingly about taking Tesla private at $420 per share was serious and that Saudi Arabia’s national wealth fund was serious about assisting him in doing so.
The Tesla CEO returned to the witness stand to respond to questioning from attorneys for incensed investors who claim that his allegedly misleading tweets about having the money to buy them out cost them millions of dollars.
A plaintiff’s attorney focused on Musk’s purchase price of 420, which is also a common rallying code for marijuana and is utilised by Musk.
When questioned about whether he was laughing when he sent the tweet, Musk responded, “420 was not chosen because of a joke; it was chosen because there was a 20 percent premium over the stock price.”
Musk continued, “I should wonder if it is good or negative karma at this time,” adding that there was “some karma around 420.”
The dispute centres on a pair of tweets by Musk, in which he first claimed that finance was “secured” for a plan to acquire the publicly traded electric carmaker and later added that “investor backing is assured.”
The tweets caused the price of Tesla shares to go on a wild ride, as a result, Musk was sued by Tesla shareholders who claim that the mogul acted recklessly in an effort to punish investors who had bet against the firm or “gone short.”
At the trial, Musk called short sellers “evil.”
Musk told the jury, “It’s hard to understand right now just how much attack Tesla was under from short sellers who wanted Tesla to die.
Deal done.
Musk, however, claimed that he sent the disputed tweets after reading a Financial Times article about a Saudi Arabian investment fund looking to buy a share in Tesla.
Regarding the news article, Musk remarked, “My fear was that if they had all of this information, then they may possibly know about the take-private.”
During his testimony, Musk stated that the Saudi sovereign wealth fund “unequivocally, without a doubt” supported his concept and that he had informed the head of the fund that the Saudi crown prince was on board.
Therefore, Musk concluded, “I understood that to suggest it was a done deal.”
Musk said that the Saudi fund was “backpedalling” when confronted with their communications with him, which indicated that they sought more information before agreeing to his buyout plan.
Musk said during his testimony that he knew the fund had the resources to take Tesla private and would do whatever it took to do so.
Aside from using his shares in SpaceX, the business he also owns, the billionaire said that even without the Saudi investment, he had enough personal fortune at the moment to take Tesla private.
“Larry Ellison and Harvard Professor Testify in Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Fraud Trial”
Larry Ellison, a computer tycoon and investor in Tesla, is scheduled to give testimony at the fraud trial. Musk said that he had discussed certain specifics of his plan with Ellison.
The plaintiffs called a Harvard professor as a witness last week, the professor claimed that Musk’s intentions were “illusory” and drastically different from how such mega-deals typically proceed.
Even while the tweets may have been a “reckless choice of words,” according to Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro, they were “not fraud, not even close.
As Musk’s attorney seized control of the questioning on Monday, he exclaimed, “I’m being accused of fraud; it’s outrageous.”
On Tuesday, the tycoon’s testimony will come to an end.