This Tuesday began the trial of Elon Musk for alleged market manipulation with a public message in which he was considering delisting Tesla from the United States. The first session of the legal dispute was dedicated to choosing the jury.
What can cause a tweet from one of the richest men in the world? Maybe making the shareholders of one of his companies lose billions of dollars, something like that supposedly happened with Musk and Tesla.
The eccentric billionaire, who has already broken a rather curious Guinness record, tweeted in 2018 that he would take his car company off the stock market at $420 per share, which means that he would have valued Tesla at about $72 billion.
The current CEO of Twitter explained that he would have the funds secured to carry out this movement, however, his words did not come true and Tesla did not go private.
In this context, several shareholders of the company expressed that they lost billions of dollars, since these words caused the company’s assets to plummet and they proceeded with a class action against the businessman.
Shareholders could either sell at 420 or hold shares & go private
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
That tweet was already expensive for Elon Musk
Although it could cost him more, the tweet was already expensive for Elon Musk because in 2018 he had to pay 20 million dollars to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an accusation of fraud as as a result of its publication on Twitter.
In addition, he had to step down as Tesla’s chairman of the board of directors for at least three consecutive years. Likewise, the electric car company also had to pay another 20 million dollars.
Editorial Team The editorial team of EMPRENDEDOR.com, which for more than 27 years has worked to promote entrepreneurship.