A federal jury in California has ruled that Elon Musk misled Twitter shareholders during his 2022 takeover bid, a decision that could expose the billionaire to billions of dollars in damages.
The verdict, delivered after a three-week trial in San Francisco, focused on two tweets Musk posted in May 2022. Jurors found those statements were false and contributed to a drop in Twitter’s share price at a critical moment, as Musk was preparing to acquire the company in a $44bn deal.
The lawsuit was brought by investor Giuseppe Pampena on behalf of shareholders who sold Twitter stock between mid-May and early October 2022. According to the plaintiffs’ legal team, the financial impact of Musk’s statements could amount to roughly $2.6bn.
Jurors concluded that Musk violated securities rules prohibiting false or misleading statements that affect stock prices. At the same time, they stopped short of finding that he had deliberately orchestrated a broader scheme to defraud investors, clearing him of some of the more serious allegations.
Shortly after the decision, Musk’s lawyers said he would appeal, calling the outcome a “setback”. Musk himself did not immediately comment on the ruling.
The case marks a rare legal loss for Musk, who has often navigated high-profile lawsuits without major consequences. In 2023, a jury in the same court cleared him of similar claims tied to his 2018 tweets about taking Tesla private.
The disputed tweets came during a turbulent period in Musk’s attempt to back out of the Twitter deal, which he ultimately completed in October 2022 after the company sued to enforce the agreement. He later rebranded the platform as X and folded it into a broader ecosystem alongside his artificial intelligence venture xAI and space company SpaceX.
Despite the ruling, Musk remains the world’s richest person, with Forbes recently estimating his net worth at $839bn, largely tied to his holdings in Tesla and SpaceX.
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