A federal judge has rejected Elon Musk's effort to dismiss a jury's verdict that found the billionaire defrauded Twitter investors during his acquisition of the social media company. The ruling also denied Musk's motion to decertify the investor class and granted the investors' request for prejudgment interest.
US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco ruled Monday that Musk was liable for attempting to drive down Twitter's stock price to renegotiate or withdraw from his $44 billion takeover in 2022. Jurors had determined Musk was responsible for statements made in May 2022 tweets where he questioned the number of fake and spam accounts, known as bots, on the platform.
However, Breyer found Musk not liable for one of the challenged tweets, issued on May 17, 2022. The judge cited a lack of market reaction to that specific statement. For a tweet on May 13, 2022, Breyer noted "substantial evidence of falsity" that caused a significant drop in Twitter's stock price.
Following the jury's verdict in March, lawyers for the plaintiffs estimated that damages could amount to approximately $2.5 billion. Musk's legal team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.