Elon Musk sanctioned for his Twitter statements, investors demand billions

In 2022, Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter had already generated considerable controversy. Between accusations of fake accounts, the attempted withdrawal from the deal, and the last-minute reversal, the operation unfolded in a highly charged atmosphere…

Four years later, this legal saga has taken a new turn. Indeed, a US federal jury has just found Elon Musk guilty of misleading some shareholders of the social network, finding that several of his public statements contributed to the company's stock price falling before its acquisition…

Tweets deemed false by a US jury

As reported by AFP, the verdict was handed down by a federal court in San Francisco after a three-week trial. The jury found that two tweets posted by Elon Musk in May 2022 contained misleading statements about the number of fake accounts on the platform. At the time, the entrepreneur claimed that the proportion of automated or spam accounts could reach 20% or more, while Twitter officially reported a level of less than 5%. These statements sowed doubt among investors and caused significant volatility in the stock price. In the days following these publications, Twitter's stock price fell by approximately 17% in two trading sessions, and some shareholders chose to sell their shares, fearing that the buyout would ultimately be abandoned. According to the plaintiffs' lawyers, these statements directly contributed to the decline in the company's value and penalized investors who sold their shares in this climate of uncertainty. Damages estimated at several billion dollars. The jury found Elon Musk liable for misleading shareholders, although it did not uphold the charge of deliberate fraud aimed at manipulating the stock price. The financial damages are still to be determined, but the plaintiffs' lawyers estimate they could reach up to $2.6 billion. for an amount that would correspond to the losses suffered by investors who sold their shares after the stock price fell.

Some shareholders sold their shares at a discount exceeding 30% compared to the final price paid by Elon Musk when he finally agreed to complete the acquisition.

After attempting to withdraw from the deal by accusing the platform of concealing the true number of spam accounts, Elon Musk ultimately agreed to honor his initial offer, just before Twitter filed a lawsuit in Delaware.

A rare legal defeat for Elon Musk

This verdict is an unusual setback for Elon Musk, often nicknamed "Teflon Elon" because of his ability to emerge unscathed from numerous lawsuits.

In 2023, a San Francisco court notably acquitted him in a similar case concerning a tweet published in 2018, in which he claimed to have the necessary funding to take Tesla private. In this Twitter case, his lawyers quickly announced their intention to appeal the decision, which they consider a mere legal setback.