A San Francisco jury took only two hours to unanimously find the world's second-richest man guilty of allegedly fraudulently tweeting about a potential Tesla purchase in August 2018.
Elon Musk may have gotten even more bullish in his Twitter use after a jury cleared the billionaire Tesla Inc chief executive over his missive that he had "funds secured" to take his electric car company private.
A San Francisco jury took only two hours to unanimously find the world's second-richest man guilty of allegedly fraudulently tweeting about a potential Tesla purchase in August 2018.
Musk is likely to "double down" on his communications strategy after the decision, said Minor Myers, professor of corporate law at the University of Connecticut.
"It's only going to encourage him to act as he sees fit," Myers said.
Musk eventually dropped his effort to take Tesla private, but told jurors at the start of the three-week trial that he believed what he wrote in the tweets.
Thank God, the wisdom of the people has won!
I deeply appreciate the jury's unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 Tech-Pvt case.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2023
Karen Woody, an associate professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law, said she thought the case against Musk was "rock-solid" and was surprised by the decision.
"He pushed the limits, and won," she said. "I hope Elon is going to write anything he wants,"
Musk himself took to Twitter to thank Jury -- which he bought in October for $44 billion.
He wrote, "Thank God, common sense has prevailed."
Tesla shareholders, who sued Musk, demanded billions of dollars in damages.
Musk's crude tweeting style made him a hero to many and lit up the Tesla brand.
He fought hard against allegations that he had not told the truth, with his attorney, Alex Spiro, telling the jury that the "Funding Secured" tweet was only technically incorrect.
"Who cares about bad word choice?" Spiro said during closing arguments.
The tweets led to Musk and Tesla paying $40 million to resolve civil charges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission under a consent settlement, which Musk unsuccessfully fought to have removed.
"He doesn't want to play by the SEC's rules as the SEC understands them, and the SEC shouldn't be seen as regressive," said Adam Pritchard, a law professor at the University of Michigan. "I expect them to continue their hardships."
Still, many analysts said Musk, who has tweeted more than 22,000 times and has nearly 128 million Twitter followers, has no reason to slow down now.
"Many people, when faced with this type of lawsuit, tweet and turn around," said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners. "But that wasn't the case with the Twitter deal, was it?
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