Elon Musk slams Twitter verdict, says jury’s $4.20 ‘joke’ mocked him
Elon Musk’s lawyer asserts that the billionaire was denied a fair trial, citing a “bizarre and highly questionable” joke that was included by a San Francisco jury in the verdict form, which determined that he defrauded Twitter Inc. shareholders prior to his acquisition of the social media platform. In a letter addressed to the federal judge overseeing the civil trial, attorney Alex Spiro emphasized the jury’s calculation regarding the impact of Musk’s tweets on Twitter’s stock. He noted that the panel specifically highlighted a single figure in blue ink — $4.20. The number 420 serves as cultural slang for marijuana consumption. On Friday, the jury determined that Musk had misled investors in 2022 when he tweeted that Twitter — now known as X — had an excessive number of fake accounts, subsequently attempting to withdraw from his $44 billion acquisition offer for the company. The investors who initiated the lawsuit asserted that Musk acted with intent, resulting in their financial losses as the shares declined. Musk’s legal team has expressed their intention to appeal the verdict. The eight-person panel determined that Musk was liable to Twitter investors for misleading them through two tweets he made in May 2022, which expressed concerns regarding the prevalence of fake accounts on the platform. Jurors dismissed a claim in the class-action case asserting that a third statement by Musk breached federal securities law, along with an accusation that the billionaire orchestrated a wider scheme to deceive investors.
Musk’s rare defeat in court — which could cost him billions of dollars — was described as a “mockery of justice,” Spiro stated in the letter. He stated that the jury “used its verdict to mock Mr. Musk and the process” and made a “numerical joke.” In response, attorneys representing the investors called on US District Judge Charles Breyer to remove Spiro’s “unsolicited” letter from the record, deeming it improper, as it “does not even appear to seek any particular form of relief.” They wrote “The letter is egregiously unfaithful to the record in this case.” On August 7, 2018, Musk drew the scrutiny of federal securities regulators when he tweeted that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla Inc. private at $420 a share. Musk, the world’s richest person, co-founded the electric-car maker and serves as its chief executive officer. Tesla stock surged, only to crash when the serial entrepreneur subsequently announced that the plan was abandoned. A San Francisco jury found Musk not guilty of any wrongdoing in 2023, despite a lawsuit from some Tesla investors.
In a distinct lawsuit filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the Tesla tweet, the agency claimed that Musk selected the $420 figure in an attempt to impress his then-girlfriend with a joke related to marijuana. The SEC reached a settlement in that case, with Musk and Tesla consenting to pay investors a total of $40 million while neither admitting nor denying any wrongdoing. In his letter Thursday to the judge, Spiro did not make a specific reference to the Tesla tweet. He stated that the Twitter jury’s focus on $4.20 “appears to be a mocking reference to a number previously associated with Mr. Musk.” Spiro asserted that the figure “had no significance” in relation to the damage determination and emphasized that the verdict was “a commentary not on whether Mr. Musk committed securities fraud (he did not) but on the jury’s views about Mr. Musk himself.” Attorneys representing the investors involved in the case alleged that Musk had publicly criticized Twitter with the intent of driving down its stock price, thereby allowing him to acquire the company for a sum lower than his initial offer of $54.20 per share.
During that summer, Twitter experienced a decline of billions of dollars in market value as Musk vacillated on his commitment to the deal, which he ultimately completed at the previously agreed price. The total damages that Musk is required to pay to individual investors will be established at a future date, contingent upon the submission of claims by shareholders. An attorney representing the investors indicated that the final amount could total $2.6 billion. However, in its verdict, the jury assessed the “amount of artificial deflation per share” of Twitter stock over a period of approximately five months in 2022. The verdict sheet submitted to the court presents a chronological array of handwritten figures, indicating amounts from under $3 to over $8 for each trading day spanning from May 13 to October 3 of that year. The figure from Aug. 9 — $4.20 — is notable as the sole entry not presented in black ink. “The jury’s bizarre and highly questionable method of completing the form, this “joke” (which was no doubt intentional), was just the final example in a parade of issues and events that illustrated and confirmed that Mr. Musk was deprived of his right to a fair trial adjudicated by an impartial jury dedicated to finding the truth,” Spiro wrote.
