Elon Musk Steps Up to Support Controversial Tweets. What You Should Know About the Trial So Far

Elon Musk, who is facing trial for a 2018 Twitter-related controversy, defended his actions in a San Francisco court on Friday

The trial revolves around Musk’s tweets from August 2018 where he claimed that he had secured financing to take Tesla private, spurring a stock frenzy that many of the automaker’s shareholders claim ruined their shares

Musk said in court that it was difficult to link Tesla’s stock price to his tweets, and also said that his tweeting was “the most democratic way” to share information

“Just because I tweet about something doesn’t mean people believe it or will act accordingly,” he said in front of a nine-person jury

The class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of shareholders who owned Tesla stock during the instability in 2018, alleging that Musk used his platform to commit fraud

Musk’s legal team has argued that as a savvy businessman, Musk had been in preliminary talks with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as a potential investor They said that Musk had spontaneously tweeted about the opportunity in an effort to be transparent

Former Tesla shareholders have already begun testifying that amid all the chaos that week in 2018, many of them sold off their stocks and saw significant dips in the shares they kept US District Judge Edward Chen is presiding over the trial and ruled that the plaintiffs can’t bring up Musk’s 40 million settlement

The case rests on the plaintiffs’ argument that Musk knowingly drove up Tesla’s stocks and never truly had plans to take the company private Some of Tesla’s top executives and board members from 2018 are on the witness list, including Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s son, James Murdoch

Although the court adjourned for the weekend, Musk is due back in the courtroom on Monday The trial is set to span three weeks, continuing through Feb 1