Tesla Investors Want Financier To Testify On Musk's Going Private Tweet

Tesla Inc. investors suing over Chief Executive Elon Musk's 2018 tweet claiming he had secured funding to take the electric car company private want a federal judge to order the private equity executive Musk spoke with about the potential $72 billion transaction to testify.

Photo Insert: The controversial tweets by Tesla co-founder Elon Musk have so far been proven to contain significant shock value

In a letter to US Magistrate Judge Kandis Westmore in Oakland on Friday, attorneys for the shareholders said they have a right to depose Egon Pierre-Durban, co-chief executive of Silver Lake Technology Management, about his communications with Musk and others, Jody Godoy reported for Reuters.

Durban replied in the joint filing that a deposition would be overly burdensome because plaintiffs already have the transcript of his four-hour interview with the Securities Exchange Commission in 2018 about his talks with Musk.

Attorneys for the parties did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Monday.

The lawsuit seeks damages from Musk, Tesla and its directors on behalf of investors who bought or sold Tesla stock in the days after Musk's surprise Twitter announcement on Aug. 7, 2018.

"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured," Musk said in the tweet. Musk's tweet helped push Tesla's stock price more than 13% above the prior day's close.

But it soon gave those gains back, and by Aug. 17, 2018, had fallen 11% below where it was before the tweet.

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