SAN FRANCISCO - A federal jury has found Elon Musk liable for defrauding Twitter shareholders during his $44 billion takeover in 2022. The verdict, delivered in San Francisco federal court, concludes a high-profile civil trial that began March 2.
Jurors determined Musk intentionally drove down Twitter’s stock price by falsely asserting the platform was overrun with bots-claiming up to 20% of accounts were fake, far above Twitter’s disclosed 5%. His public statements, including a May 17, 2022 tweet declaring the deal “cannot go forward,” caused significant share depreciation.
The lawsuit covers investors who sold Twitter stock between May 13 and October 4, 2022, alleging Musk artificially depressed prices to renegotiate or exit the deal. Damages will be decided in a later phase.
Musk ultimately closed the acquisition in October 2022 and rebranded Twitter as X. In February, SpaceX acquired xAI-the AI unit housing X-creating a $1.25 trillion private entity.
This marks a rare courtroom loss for Musk, who previously won shareholder lawsuits over Tesla’s “funding secured” tweet and his $139 billion pay package.