The boss of Tesla is accused by investors of having lied by saying that he wanted to withdraw his group from the Stock Exchange in 2018.
Mo12345lemonde with AFP
Elon Musk introduced himself on Friday January 20 at the Federal Court of San Francisco during a trial where he is accused of fraud by investors for having tweeted, more than four years ago that he intended to go out Tesla de la Bourse.
Dark costume, white shirt and tie, he defended his way of communicating on Twitter and his accomplishments at the head of the automotive group for half an hour. His testimony must continue on Monday.
Elon Musk had created stupor on August 7, 2018 by saying that he wanted to withdraw his group from the stock market at 420 dollars per share, since the funding was “secure”.
Tesla’s title had jumped up to $ 386.48 just after. On August 16, it came back down to 335.45 dollars, according to figures indicated in the jury on Tuesday by judge Edward Chen, far from the $ 420 per share mentioned by Musk.
“Elon Musk lied, and his lies caused millions of dollars to people,” said Nicholas Porritt, lawyer for complainants gathered in a collective action on Wednesday.
“They want Tesla die “
These downward speculations “should be illegal,” said Mr. Musk, questioned by Mr. Porritt about his opinion concerning this type of investors.
“These are bad people who steal money from small investors. They want Tesla to die and they are ready to do anything to kill businesses, it’s evil,” he continued for of the jury.
His lawyer Alexander Spiro had assured Wednesday that Elon Musk intended to leave Tesla from the Stock Exchange and did not doubt his financing capacities, thanks to insurance from the Saudi sovereign fund. The tweet was written “in a hasty way”, the choice of words was “imprudent”, but “it is not fraud”, he insisted.
Friday, the plaintiff’s lawyer sought to show that Tesla’s CEO and his entourage were well aware of the consequences of his unbridled volubility on Twitter. He spoke of one of his tweets in July 2018, when he had treated a “guy pedo” a British speleologist who criticized him.
“Did you take a break on Twitter?” Asked Mr. Porritt, referring to the advice in this sense of a senior Tesla official and an investor. “I do not think,” replied the billionaire.
“False and misleading”
The trial must last three weeks. In a previous decision linked to this case, a judge had estimated that the famous tweet of 2018 could be considered “false and deceptive”.
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The manufacturer had quickly abandoned the idea of getting out of the side. But the American stock market gendarme, the SEC, believing that Mr. Musk had not provided proof of its funding, had imposed on him to yield the chairmanship of the board of directors of Tesla and to pay a fine of $ 20 million.
He had later demanded that his tweets directly linked to the activity of Tesla be pre-approved by a competent lawyer
“Elon Musk sees this trial as a means of making this DEC decision re -examine,” said Josh White, former economist of the Federal Agency. “He thinks that he has done nothing wrong and that he has the right to say what he wants on Twitter.”