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Elon Musk’s Tesla Tweets Could Cost Him Billions More — in Court

Investor lawsuit alleges deception about take-private plan
His lawyers say pretrial ruling could turn jurors against him

Elon Musk — Elon Musk
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

By

Joel Rosenblatt

January 17, 2023, 11:00 AM UTC

It took only a couple of tweets to plunge Elon Musk into the morass of a securities fraud trial that could cost him billions of dollars from his rapidly diminishing fortune.

The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer is set to be the star witness at a jury trial that starts Tuesday in San Francisco federal court over his infamous tweets 4 1/2 years ago about a plan to take the electric-car maker private with “funding secured.”