Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears in federal court, testifies in class action trial over 2018 tweet

Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared in a San Francisco federal courtroom on Friday in a trial over a 2018 tweet in which he claimed to have “secured funding” to take Tesla private, a tweet that shareholders allege cost them millions in trading losses, and defended himself by saying that “just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly”.

Wearing a dark suit over a white button-down shirt, the billionaire testified for less than 30 minutes before the court adjourned on Monday, Guardian reported. Musk spoke softly and in bemused manner sometimes, a contrast to his combative testimony in past trials.

Musk’s testimony began with questions about his use of Twitter, the microblogging site he bought in October and called it the most democratic way to communicate while adding that his tweets did not always affect Tesla stock the way he expected.

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Watch | Elon Musk testifies in federal court over Tesla tweet, investors claim tweet costs them in millions

Musk described the difficulties the company went through around the time he sent the “funding secured” tweet, including bets by short-sellers that the stock would fall.

“A bunch of sharks on Wall Street wanted Tesla to die, very badly,” he said, describing short-sellers, who profit when a stock falls in price.

On Wednesday, Musk’s attorney, Alex Spiro, told the jury that his client believed he had financing from Saudi backers and was taking steps to make the deal happen and had tried to protect the “shareholders” by posting the tweet that had “technical inaccuracies”.

A jury of nine will decide whether the tweet artificially inflated Tesla's share price by playing upthe status of the funding for the deal and if so, by how much.

(With inputs from agencies)

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