Elon Musk protested his innocence too much.
(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk protested his innocence too much.
That’s the take-away on the Tesla Inc. CEO’s trial testimony from the investors who accused him of lying when he tweeted in 2018 about taking the electric-car maker private.
In an “emergency” court filing, lawyers for the investors complained late Thursday to the judge handling the case that Musk and his lawyers have created “confusion” for the jury over the three days the billionaire spent on the witness stand.
“On no less than ten occasions, Mr. Musk testified to the accuracy and truthfulness of the ‘funding secured’ tweets,” they wrote. “Moreover, even though this court already held Mr. Musk acted with recklessness, he testified that his intentions were pure.”
It’s not uncommon for people accused of lying to defend themselves in court by saying they told the truth.
But this case is unusual because the judge had previously ruled that key pieces of Musk’s August 2018 tweets were false and reckless — and he told the jury at the outset of the trial to assume as much.
Then, for good measure, US District Judge Edward Chen cautioned the jury again a few days into trial that the tweets were false. Thursday’s filing is a request for yet another warning to the jury.
The filing reprises several colloquies while Musk was on the stand defending his famous tweet on Aug. 7, 2018: “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.”
The tweet was “absolutely truthful,” Musk told jurors Monday. A commitment by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to support the go-private plan and his ability to tap into his SpaceX shares to finance the deal backed his “funding secured” claim, Musk testified repeatedly.
On Tuesday, he emphatically told the jury he had no “ill motive” when he tweeted and that he wanted to do the “right thing for shareholders” by informing them about the go-private plan.
The two-week trial that started Jan. 17 will resume Friday with testimony expected from Egon Durban, the co-chief executive officer of private equity firm Silver Lake, and Dan Dees a top executive at Goldman Sachs, both of whom Musk consulted about his plan.
In re Tesla Inc. Securities Litigation, 18-cv-04865, US District Court, District of Northern California (San Francisco).
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