The U.S. jury rules Musk intentionally misled company shareholders and suppressed stock price prior to Twitter acquisition

BlockBeats News, March 21st, according to CNN, a California jury largely sided with shareholders of Twitter (now renamed X) on Friday, who accused billionaire Musk of making false statements and intentionally depressing the company's stock price before his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company in 2022. However, the jury did not find Musk involved in a "overall conspiracy to defraud investors."

This ruling concludes a civil class-action lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by a group of Twitter shareholders in October 2022—just weeks before Musk officially took over the company. During several weeks of trial, Musk was forced to testify. Musk initially agreed to acquire Twitter in April 2022, but attempted to back out in the following months, eventually completing the acquisition.

According to plaintiffs' lawyers' estimates, the jury's award is expected to be around $2.5 billion, with the specific amount depending on the final number of opt-ins to the class action.

According to Musk's lawyers, Musk plans to appeal the ruling. His legal firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, stated that Musk has recently succeeded in appeals in unrelated cases in Texas and Delaware.