Today: Jury Selection Begins In Elon Musk’s Tesla Trial

The Associated Press reports:

Elon Musk claimed in a August 7, 2018 tweet that he had lined up the financing to pay for a $72 billion buyout of Tesla, which he then amplified with a follow-up statement that made a deal seem imminent.

But the buyout never materialized and now Musk will have to explain his actions under oath in a federal court in San Francisco. The trial, which begins on Tuesday with jury selection, was triggered by a class-action lawsuit on behalf of investors who owned Tesla stock for a 10-day period in August 2018.

Musk’s tweets back then fueled a rally in Tesla’s stock price that abruptly ended a week later, after it became apparent that he didn’t have the funding for a buyout after all.

Read the full article. Last week Musk lost a last-ditch attempt to move the trial to Texas after claiming that an impartial jury could not be found in “negative” San Francisco.

Elon Musk’s infamous 2018 tweets about a plan to take Tesla private are now at the center of a securities fraud trial — and losing could put him on the hook for billions in damages https://t.co/VQtVk63b77

— Bloomberg (@business) January 17, 2023