Jury finds Musk misled Twitter shareholders during takeover fight

A jury on Friday found that Elon Musk misled Twitter’s shareholders by driving down Twitter’s stock price ahead of his $44 billion acquisition of the company in 2022.

The San Francisco jury were asked if two tweets and comments made by Musk on a podcast showed that he deliberately defrauded the shareholders and drove down Twitter’s stock price. They concluded that the tweets were false and misleading but did not hold him liable for the podcast comment.

The jury also dismissed the investors’ claim that Musk’s tweets and comments amounted to a scheme.

Four of the shareholders sued Musk in October 2022, claiming they suffered major losses as a result of Musk’s comments regarding spam bot accounts on Twitter, now the social platform X. The four shareholders’ lawyers said on Friday that Musk could now be forced to pay former shareholders around $2.5 billion, The New York Times reported.

“This is a great example of what you cannot do to the average investor –– people that have 401ks, kids, pension funds, teachers, firemen, nurses,” Joseph Cotchett, one of the investors’ attorneys, told CNBC. That’s what this case was all about. This was not about Musk. It was about the whole operation.”

Musk’s attorneys told CNBC that they “look forward to vindication on appeal,” calling the jury’s verdict a “bump in the road.”

The Hill has reached out to X for comment.

Musk was previously sued by Twitter shareholders in April 2022 after they claimed that the delayed disclosure of his stake in the social media company was a “mistake.” Musk’s lawyers argued in July 2024 that the delay was a simple error.

Following his purchase of Twitter, Musk became the social media company’s largest shareholder after purchasing a 9.2 percent ownership stake.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also investigated Musk’s purchase of Twitter into whether any federal security laws had been violated in connection with the purchase. The tech billionaire agreed to testify but later sought to have the case dismissed. His lawyers argued that there was “no harm” done in disclosing his share of Twitter.

The SEC then sued Musk in January 2025, claiming that he allegedly withheld information that allowed him to underpay for the shares “after his financial beneficial ownership report was due.”

Musk attempted to move the case out of Washington, D.C., but a federal judge denied his request.