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Before the jury arrived Friday, lawyers for the opposing sides were arguing to US District Edward Chen, whose question about whether it’s “metaphysically possible” for plaintiffs to prove a “material misrepresentation” prompted Musk to laugh out loud.
Jurors have heard weeks of testimony about whether Musk’s tweets in August 2018 about taking the electric-car maker private with “funding secured” amount to fraud, and whether he should be held liable for potentially billions of dollars in damages.
Investment banking witnesses previously testified that even a week after the tweets, they were still working to figure out how the deal would be structured, including who would pay for it.
Musk’s central defense is that he knew he could raise as much as $60 billion to take Tesla private based on a handshake deal with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
The CEO spent a little more than two days on the witness stand, telling jurors that his “funding secured” tweet was “absolutely truthful,” and that he had an “unequivocal” commitment by Saudi Arabia even though he had nothing in writing.
In re Tesla Inc. Securities Litigation, 18-cv-04865, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
