U.S. Jury Cuts Musk Some Slack: No Guilt For Bogus Tweets

Elon Musk may become even more emboldened in his Twitter use after a jury cleared the billionaire Tesla Inc. chief executive over his missive that he had "funding secured" to take his electric car company private, Jody Godoy and Jonathan Stempel reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: Musk settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2018, and stepped down from his role as Tesla board chair as a condition of the settlement.

A San Francisco jury took just two hours to unanimously find the world's second-richest person not liable for having tweeted fraudulently in August 2018 about a possible Tesla buyout.

Musk is likely to "double down" on his dubious messaging after the verdict, said Minor Myers, a professor of corporate law at the University of Connecticut.

"This is only going to embolden him to act as he sees fit," Myers said. Musk ultimately abandoned his effort to take Tesla private, but told jurors early in the three-week trial that he had believed what he wrote in tweets.

Karen Woody, an associate professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law, said she thought the case was "rock-solid" against Musk and she was shocked at the verdict. "He pushed the boundaries, and won," she said. "I expect Elon is going to write anything he wants."

Musk himself thanked the jury on Twitter -- which he bought in October for $44 billion. While the verdict ends the years-long saga of the “funding secured” tweets, the posts weren’t entirely without consequences for Musk.

He settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2018, and stepped down from his role as Tesla board chair as a condition of the settlement.

Musk has long decried the SEC settlement and has said he was “forced to admit I lied to save Tesla’s life,” Karissa Bell reported for Engadget.

The trial was not to determine whether those tweets were true. That question had already been answered. Edward M. Chen, the federal judge overseeing the case, ruled that the tweets were untrue and Musk was reckless for posting them. The three-week trial was largely a tug-of-war over language and intent.

Attorney Nicholas Porritt, who made closing arguments for the plaintiffs, argued that when Musk posted the tweets the company was nowhere near reaching a deal to go private, citing emails and texts to prove there was not an agreement or even a framework to reach one, Kirsten Korosec reported for TechCrunch.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic