A jury will now decide whether Elon Musk committed fraud when he tweeted ‘funding secured’
Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
The question of whether Tesla CEO Elon Musk committed fraud when he tweeted in August 2018 that he was thinking of taking the company private, adding “funding secured,” is now up to a jury.
With Musk in attendance, the jury in the billionaire’s securities fraud trial heard closing arguments from an attorney representing a class of Tesla investors who claim they suffered big losses as a result of Musk’s tweet. They also heard from Musk’s lawyers, who claimed all he was guilty of was “poor word choice.” Their decision will determine whether Musk and Tesla are liable for possibly billions of dollars in damages or Musk gets to walk away unscathed.
“Just because it’s a bad tweet doesn’t make it fraud,” Alex Spiro, Musk’s attorney, said in his…
