Elon Musk Misled Investors During $44B Twitter Takeover, Jury Finds

Allison Robbert/Pool via AP

A San Francisco jury found tech mogul Elon Musk liable for misleading investors during his turbulent $44 billion takeover of social media platform Twitter, now called X, but stopped short of concluding he orchestrated a broader fraud scheme.

Friday’s verdict lands after weeks of testimony about the 2022 corporate takeover in which Musk’s tweets, public comments, and abrupt reversals shocked the market.

Musk himself was not present in court for the decision, and cameras were barred from proceedings, but jurors concluded, after three days of deliberation, that Musk deliberately drove down Twitter’s stock price with public statements at the time, including a tweet declaring the deal was “temporarily on hold.” That message, alongside another tweet, was deemed misleading to investors who sold shares amid the uncertainty.

However, the nine-person jury rejected other allegations that Musk had engaged in a coordinated “scheme” to defraud shareholders and cleared him over remarks made during a podcast appearance.

The class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of thousands of shareholders and began on March 2, with jurors deliberating for three days before reaching their decision.

Damages in the case could reach into the billions, with jurors indicating compensation of between roughly $3 and $8 per share, per day, for affected investors. Many of those shareholders are major institutional players, raising the stakes of the ruling far beyond individual claims.

Musk, whose wealth is estimated at around $814 billion and largely tied to Tesla stock, had argued throughout the trial that his concerns about fake accounts on Twitter were legitimate.

He testified that the platform’s estimate that fewer than 5% of users were bots significantly understated the problem. Those concerns became central to Musk’s attempt to withdraw from the deal, triggering a separate legal showdown in Delaware.

Twitter sued to force the billionaire to complete the acquisition, setting the stage for a high-stakes courtroom clash that was ultimately avoided when Musk reversed course and agreed to proceed with the purchase on the original terms.

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