▲ Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX
A US court has upheld a jury verdict finding that Elon Musk misled investors during his acquisition of the social media platform Twitter, now known as X.
On July 6 (local time), Judge Charles Breyer of the US District Court for the Northern District of California denied Musk's request to overturn the jury's decision.
The jury had previously determined that Musk intentionally deceived investors to drive down the stock price after agreeing to the 44 billion dollar acquisition deal for Twitter.
On May 13, 2022, shortly after announcing his intent to acquire Twitter, Musk tweeted that the acquisition was on hold pending verification of the number of fake accounts on the platform. Following this, Twitter's stock price plummeted by 18 percent over two days.
Musk subsequently posted another tweet on May 17 of the same year, stating that the acquisition could not proceed.
In July of that year, Musk declared the termination of the contract, claiming that Twitter had failed to provide proper account information. However, he ultimately completed the acquisition of Twitter just three months later, in October.
During the trial, Musk argued that his tweets about putting the investment on hold were not false. However, the court rejected this, noting that there was no evidence Musk had ever instructed his team to stop work related to the deal.
Judge Breyer pointed out, "Even if one has second thoughts about a deal or experiences a moment of regret, such anxiety does not justify lying to the investing public."
However, the court limited the fraud charges to the tweet posted on May 13. Regarding the May 17 tweet, the court did not hold Musk liable for investor losses, noting that the market reaction at that time could not be confirmed.
Musk's legal team had argued that the entire verdict should be invalidated, claiming that the jury mocked him by writing only the damage amount of '4.20' dollars in blue ink on the verdict form.
Musk has frequently used the number 420, such as offering a purchase price of 54.20 dollars per share when acquiring Twitter and mentioning 420 dollars per share during the 2018 controversy over taking Tesla private.
The court, however, found Musk's argument unreasonable, noting that the jury had deliberated for four days and had ruled in Musk's favor on some claims.
Regarding the '420' figure, the court noted that it is a common reference to marijuana and cannot necessarily be viewed as mockery of Musk. It also pointed out that Musk's side failed to provide evidence of mockery and that the jury had used blue ink for other parts of the verdict form as well.
Legal representatives for the plaintiffs have previously stated that the damages Musk could face as a result of this trial could reach approximately 2.5 billion dollars (about 3.8 trillion won).
In addition to this case, Musk is also being sued by investors over allegations that he delayed disclosing his initial stake in the company to purchase shares at a lower price.
Twitter, which was acquired by Musk and renamed X, was later acquired by the artificial intelligence company xAI, which was recently incorporated as a subsidiary of SpaceX.
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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