Elon Musk now faces legal consequences over his 2022 attempt to walk away from buying Twitter, after a California jury ruled that he misled investors with his public statements about fake accounts on the platform. The case centers on Musk’s tweets during the deal period, which raised doubts about Twitter’s user data and triggered a drop in its stock price.
At the time, Musk posted that the Twitter deal was “temporarily on hold” while he verified claims that spam or fake accounts made up less than 5% of users. That message created uncertainty in the market, and Twitter shares fell by around 8% in the following days. Investors who sold their shares during that period later claimed they suffered losses because of those statements.
According to CNBC, investor Giuseppe Pampena led the lawsuit on behalf of shareholders who sold Twitter stock between May 13 and October 4, 2022. The jury agreed with the argument that Musk’s posts were not just concerns but were intended to influence the stock price during the acquisition process.
The jury found that Musk knowingly misled investors, which opens the door for financial damages. Pampena’s legal team said compensation could reach up to $2.6 billion, although the final amount has not been confirmed. Musk’s defense argued that he raised genuine concerns about bots, but the jury did not accept that explanation.
A pattern of legal battles over tweets
This case adds to Musk’s history of legal trouble tied to his social media activity. In 2018, he posted that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share, which led to a securities fraud case by the SEC. Musk later avoided liability in a shareholder lawsuit tied to that tweet, but this ruling marks a different outcome.
After completing the Twitter deal, Musk rebranded the platform as X and merged it with his AI company, xAI. He continues to push broader plans around artificial intelligence and infrastructure, even as this legal case moves toward a final damages decision.
