This is a major victory for Elon Musk. The businessman was found not guilty of fraud on Friday by a California jury charged with determining whether his 2018 tweets claiming he was going to take his company Tesla out of the stock market violated stock market laws.
Jurors quickly reached that verdict on Friday after a three-week trial sparked by complaints from investors claiming they were harmed by the stock price swing his tweets triggered.
“Secure” financing
He had created amazement on August 7, 2018 by saying that he wanted to withdraw his group from the Stock Exchange by paying 420 dollars per share, then that the financing was “secured”. A few days later he indicated that he was in discussion with the Saudi sovereign fund in particular.
Alexander Spiro, the billionaire’s lawyer, admitted that his client had written this tweet “hastily” The choice of words was “reckless”, but “it is not a fraud”, had hammered the lawyer.
The electric car maker’s stock jumped as high as $386.48 in the wake of the tweets, knocking the shirts off some investors who had bet on a fall in Tesla stock.