Musk’s tweets about Twitter bots could lead to substantial financial repercussions.
Elon Musk was found by a San Francisco jury to have misled Twitter investors during his tumultuous $44 billion purchase of the platform in 2022, potentially facing damages exceeding $2.6 billion.
The legal case focused on tweets and statements Musk made in May 2022, questioning the deal by claiming a high number of spam and bot accounts on Twitter. Investors believed this was a strategy to back out or renegotiate the deal at a lower price, causing the stock to plummet, leading to a lawsuit against Musk in October 2022.
The jury concluded unanimously that Musk’s May 13 and May 17 tweets were misleading, but did not hold him liable for his May 16 comment claiming 20% of Twitter users were spam accounts and dismissed the broader fraud claims.
Musk’s legal team plans to appeal the decision, describing it as “a bump in the road.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Mark Molumphy, emphasized the verdict as an affirmation that extensive wealth doesn’t shield anyone from accountability, which is an increasingly pertinent message today.