According to CNBC, a California jury has found Elon Musk guilty of misleading Twitter investors prior to the $44 billion acquisition deal in 2022. Musk, as reported by The New York Times, admitted in court that while he did not think his tweets would impact the stock market, he acknowledged that some of his posts could be perceived as irresponsible. He stated, “If this trial was about my foolish tweets, I would plead guilty.”
Musk’s legal team is expected to appeal the jury’s decision, with potential damages estimated to be as high as $2.6 billion, as indicated by the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Although the jury did not find evidence of a deliberate scheme to deceive shareholders, they pointed to two specific tweets by Musk on May 13th and May 27th, 2022, which were deemed misleading and led some investors to sell their Twitter shares below the $54.20 bid price.
The Twitter acquisition is currently on hold pending verification that fake/spam accounts make up less than 5% of the platform’s users.
While Twitter claims only 20% of accounts are fake/spam, which is four times higher than reported, the actual figure could be significantly greater.
My offer was contingent on the accuracy of Twitter’s SEC filings.
However, Twitter’s CEO has refused to provide evidence of the <5% threshold.
As a result, the acquisition cannot proceed until this information is disclosed.
