Nine people were selected Tuesday as jurors in the trial that will determine whether Tesla CEO Elon Musk misled investors by claiming during a series of tweets in 2018 that he had secured financing to buy the car company’s shares. electrical.
The five-hour process leaves everything ready for the opening statements in the case to begin starting Wednesday, which is expected to include testimony from Musk to explain what was going through his head while he was carrying out one of his activities. favourites: tweet from the platform you now own.
In the case of Tesla, the tweets spurred a sharp rise in Tesla’s share price that came to an abrupt end a week later, when it became apparent that Musk did not have the financing for the acquisition. Investors sued him, saying Tesla’s shares wouldn’t have fluctuated as much if he hadn’t talked about buying the company at $420 a share.
Musk’s tweet also drew the attention of stock market regulators, who concluded he was wrong and lying. In an agreement, they forced him to pay 40 million dollars and the agreement required that he step down as president of the company.
Musk has since argued that he was pressured into the deal and maintains that he believed he had secured financial backing for the acquisition during meetings with representatives of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.
Even as he’s been making major changes at Twitter, Musk remains Tesla’s CEO and draws most of his fame and fortune from the company.
The lawsuit centers on an August 7, 2018 tweet in which Musk claimed he had obtained the financing to acquire Tesla for $72 billion, which he later expanded on with a statement making the deal appear imminent.
But the transaction never materialized, and Musk must now explain his actions under oath in federal court in San Francisco. The class action lawsuit was brought on behalf of investors who held Tesla shares during a 10-day period in August 2018.
The outcome of the trial could depend on the jury’s interpretation of Musk’s motive for posting tweets that federal judge Edward Chen has already ruled were false.
Musk suffered a further setback on Friday when Chen rejected his request to move the trial to federal court in Texas, where Tesla has been based since 2021. Musk had argued that negative media coverage of the Twitter buyout tainted the list of potential jurors. from the San Francisco area.
The challenge of finding jurors who didn’t have an opinion on Musk was laid bare during Tuesday’s grueling selection process.
At one point, the judge singled out certain candidates who had expressed great suspicion or enthusiasm about Musk in previous questionnaires. Seven jurors were interviewed individually and away from the pool of potential jurors, in order to reduce the chances of influencing the opinion of others in the room.
Several of those jurors described Musk as “arrogant,” “narcissistic,” unpredictable,” “crazy,” “mercenary,” and “genius.”
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, where he has laid off staff and angered users and advertisers, has proved unpopular with current Tesla shareholders, who worry that he is spending less time running the car company at a time when there are more competition.
Those fears contributed to a 65% drop in Tesla shares last year that wiped out more than $700 billion of shareholder equity, far more than the $14 billion loss that occurred when prices fell between the August 7 and 17, 2018, the period covered by the class action.