Elon Musk heads to trial over his infamous $420 tweet as regulatory tension brews

Lawsuit secured… Elon Musk is heading to court over his “funding secured” tweet. Refresher: in 2018 Musk tweeted that he’d secured funding to take Tesla private at $420/share. Turns out the funding wasn’t so secure. Another issue: Elon didn’t follow required SEC disclosure procedures. Regulators said Musk’s surprise tweet misled investors and caused Tesla stock to spike. Also in 2018, Elon and Tesla agreed to pay $20M each in fines to settle with the SEC (and Elon agreed to step down as chairman). But the chapter wasn’t closed there…

• Elon’s trial kicked off yesterday in San Francisco. The subject: a class-action lawsuit brought by former Tesla investors who said the $420 tweet lost them billions.
• Elon says he did talk to Saudi sovereign wealth fund execs about securing funding for a $72B Tesla buyout — but the cash turned out to be far from secure.
• Experts say it could be a hard case for Musk to win, with one judge saying no reasonable jury would find the tweet “accurate or not misleading.”

Stirring the pot… Elon’s tension with securities regulators and investors has been building for years, from calling regulators “bastards” over the $420 fraud charges to his slew of tweets about dogecoin in 2021. Now the billionaire could pay billions if jurors rule in shareholders’ favor when his trial ends next month.