Elon Musk testifies in 2nd day of Tesla tweet trial

On this courtroom sketch, Elon Musk, left, with shareholder legal professional Nicholas Porritt, seems in federal courtroom in San Francisco, Friday, Jan. 20, 2023. Musk took the witness stand to defend a 2018 tweet claiming he had lined up the financing to take Tesla personal in a deal that by no means got here near taking place. The tweet resulted in a $40 million settlement with securities regulators. It additionally led to a class-action lawsuit alleging he misled buyers, pulling him into courtroom Friday. (Vicki Behringer by way of AP)(AP)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk returned to federal courtroom Monday in San Francisco to testify in a category motion lawsuit filed by Tesla buyers alleging he misled them with a tweet.

The tweet, which resulted in a $40 million settlement with securities regulators, claimed he had lined up the financing to take Tesla personal in a deal that by no means got here near taking place.

The trial hinges on the query of whether or not a pair of tweets that Musk posted on Aug. 7, 2018, broken Tesla shareholders throughout a 10-day interval main as much as a Musk admission that the buyout he had envisioned wasn’t going to occur.

Musk, who stated he “had hassle sleeping final night time and sadly I'm not at my finest,” testified that it was necessary for jurors to know that he “felt that funding was secured” on account of his possession of “SpaceX inventory alone.”

“Simply as I bought inventory in Tesla to purchase Twitter. ... I didn’t wish to promote Tesla inventory however I did promote Tesla inventory,” he stated of the inventory sale to make up for the shortage of funding from different sources for his $44 billion deal to take Twitter personal.

“My SpaceX shares alone would have meant that funding was secured,” Musk stated.