He called the Securities and Exchange Commission a profane name and said he only settled the case because bankers told him they would stop providing capital if he didn’t, and the Austin, Texas-based Tesla would have gone bankrupt. Twitter’s board on Friday adopted a “poison pill” strategy that would make it prohibitively expensive for Musk to buy the shares.Īt issue is Musk's April 14 interview at the TED 2022 conference, where he said that he did have funding secured to take Tesla private in 2018. The ruling comes about a week after Musk, the world’s richest person, made a controversial offer to take over Twitter and turn it into a private company with a $43 billion offer that equals $54.20 per share. Musk is challenging the agreement, saying it is unconstitutional. Musk signed the agreement to pay a $20 million fine and not make any statements denying the securities fraud allegations. Lawyers for the plaintiffs also argued that Musk violated an October 2018, court settlement with U.S. He also wrote that the jury would be drawn from a large metro area, and that Musk's comments are consistent with public positions in another related court case.
Chen wrote that the trial has been rescheduled for early next year, and that publicity during or just before a trial is a larger concern. The lawsuit contends that the CEO’s August 2018 tweets were written to manipulate Tesla's stock price, costing shareholders money.Ĭhen confirmed in an order Wednesday that he has ruled that Musk's 2018 tweets about having the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share were false.īut he wrote that one of the shareholders who pursued the gag order in the class-action lawsuit failed to prove his case. Lawyers for the shareholders have argued that Musk is trying to influence potential jurors before the lawsuit comes to trial on Jan.
District Judge Edward Chen Wednesday came just hours after the Tesla CEO's lawyer filed a document in the case saying that a gag order would trample on Musk's free speech rights. DETROIT (AP) - A federal judge in California has rejected a request from shareholders in a lawsuit to force Elon Musk stop talking about his 2018 tweets in which he said he had the funding to make Tesla a private company.