Elon Musk didn't sleep well last night, it's unclear if it was his second day testifying in the Tesla shareholders' lawsuit, the problems of Twitter or some other problem that kept him awake at night, but he admitted in court:
“Unfortunately, I am not at my best.” Although without foundation, Musk diverted the accusations that he defrauded investors by saying that “received funds” to launch the offer from automaker Tesla. As mentioned, the price of $420 (in reference to marijuana) “it's no joke.”
“It is very important for the jury to know this. “Very important,” he said. Musk. According to Bloomberg agencies and Reuters, present in the San Francisco court where the trial takes place, its two lines of defense were the ability to finance the operation with shares of SpaceX and the supposed determined will of the Saudi sovereign fund. To participate in PIF, the businessman has focused almost his entire strategy on this second point.
The judge handling the case has already clarified that the two words from the 2018 tweet (“funding guaranteed”) They were false, but why Musk be sentenced to compensate the investors, it must be proven that he intended to deceive, that that tweet changed the price and the shareholders who invest in the fire of the alleged plans of Musk to launch an offer $ 420 per share suffer losses.
Musk explained in his statement that he dined at 2017 with his friend Larry Ellison founder of oracle, which also included executives from Goldman Sachs and the investment firm SoftBank and that Ellison supported the idea of privatizing Tesla but above all.
Questions on Monday focused on whether a deal had been reached with the Saudi fund to finance part of the delisting bid.
questioned by the plaintiff's lawyer, Nicholas Porritt, Musk he was forced to admit that nothing had been signed.
However, boss Tesla has repeatedly confirmed that an agreement is already in place. “They have more money than all of Tesla,” he said, noting that an investment of $5 billion or $10 billion It wouldn't be so relevant to the fund.
Musk's problem is that, during the investigation of the case, messages from the head of the Saudi fund were known, according to which there is no agreement, and he needs the details of the operation to move forward.
At the same time, Musk assured that the fund manager assured him that she had already discussed the operation with the Saudi prince, and that is why he took it for granted: “If they say they will do something, they will do it,” he said.
At the insistence of the plaintiffs' lawyer to clarify the content of the meetings held with officials of the Saudi fund in 2018 Musk apologized and he said that was five years ago and he couldn't remember the details.
The marijuana “joke”
Musk was asked about the price of $ 420 per share, which is the number used to refer to marijuana, and said it was a coincidence.
The Commission's statement of objections Stock Exchange and Securities (SEC), which agreed to pay a fine of $ 20 million for the famous tweet, says Musk was thinking about a cousin of the 20% and since then rose to $ 419, so he decided to round up $ 420 because “He recently learned the meaning of the number in marijuana culture and thought his [then] girlfriend would like it, which is no big deal. “Pick a price,” he admitted.
Today he insists that it was a coincidence: “I don't know if you found it funny or not but $420 is no joke”, he defended. Musk offered $54.20 per share to buy Twitter, repeating the number of marijuana in your offer.
In Friday's session, Musk attempted to disassociate his tweets from Tesla's stock market movements. He argued that Twitter it was the “most democratic way” to reach individual investors with information that he believed was “the most democratic.”
“The public needs to be heard.” Imminent surgery. “Shareholders can sell for 420 or keep the shares [in the closed company],” he added.
Tesla's stock price rose (and fell after it was revealed there was no takeover bid to take the company off the stock market), but Musk stood out from the movement's tweets in an experiment on Friday.
“Tesla stock goes up and down all the time,” he once said. “Just because you tweet something doesn't mean people are going to believe it or act on it,” he argued.