Key Takeaways From Musk’s First Day of Testimony in Fraud Trial

(Bloomberg) — Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk began testifying Friday in the trial of a securities-fraud lawsuit over his August 2018 tweet about taking the company private. He will be back for more on Monday. Here are some key takeaways of his comments testimony so far, and click here for our TOPLive blog:

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• Musk, 51, took the stand late in the afternoon and was testifying for about 25 minutes before the jury was sent home for the day.

• Musk appeared well prepared and remained calm through the questioning by Nicholas Porritt, the attorney for the plaintiffs.

• Musk said his tweets are “information that I think the public should hear,” especially for retail investors, but “there’s a limit” to how much he can communicate with Twitter’s 240-character limit, which all Twitter users understand.

• Musk disputed that his tweets affect Tesla’s share price, saying, “just because I tweet about something doesn’t mean people believe it or will act accordingly.” He said he once tweeted that Tesla shares were too high, but then the price went even higher. “It was counterintuitive,” Musk said. “The causal relationship is clearly not there because of a tweet.”

• Musk told the jury 2018 was an “extremely painful and difficult year,” adding that he “was sleeping in the factory to make things work.” Musk said, “The sheer level of pain to make Tesla successful in 2017-2019 period was excruciating for me and many others.”

• Musk admitted that he was instructed by key investors in July 2018 to take a break from tweeting, and that he did not listen to them.

• Musk reiterated that short selling should be made illegal, telling jurors that short-sellers want the stock to go down and want Tesla “to die very badly.”

• Musk is no stranger to a courtroom. In December 2019, he prevailed in a defamation trial, with a Los Angeles jury quickly returning a verdict in his favor. He later won a battle against shareholders who sued over Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity. And in November, he testified in Delaware Chancery Court in a trial over over his unprecedented compensation package.

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