On Tuesday, jury selection began in a California courtroom over whether Elon Musk committed fraud by tweeting in 2018 that he was about to take Tesla private.
The tweets drove Tesla’s stock price soaring, and Musk is being sued by shareholders who claim the billionaire acted recklessly, costing them billions of dollars.
The trial is scheduled to last three weeks and comes at a critical time for Musk, who will most certainly be called to testify.
Tesla’s stock price has dropped in the last year, owing to investor dissatisfaction with Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the social media network to which the billionaire appears to be devoting much of his time.
Shareholders sued Musk in 2018 for allegedly costing them billions of dollars by tweeting “financing secured” for a scheme to buy out the publicly traded electric automaker.
Musk claimed in a second tweet that “investor support is confirmed,” and that the purchase was only pending a shareholder vote.
“The plaintiff argues that these tweets were materially misleading and artificially influenced the price of Tesla shares and other securities after they were made,” US District Court Judge Edward Chen summarized the case for possible jurors.
US officials have already investigated Musk’s brief tweets in 2018.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States ordered Musk to resign as chairman of Tesla’s board of directors and fined the company and Musk each $20 million.
