Jury Finds Musk Liable to Twitter Shareholders in Lawsuit Over $44 Billion Takeover

Jurors found tech billionaire Elon Musk liable for misleading investors through two social media posts made in 2022.

Elon Musk, chief executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 16, 2023. Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

A federal jury on March 20 found tech billionaire Elon Musk liable for misleading Twitter shareholders by driving down the social media platform’s stock price months before acquiring it for $44 billion in 2022.

The decision follows a civil class action lawsuit filed by Twitter investors in October 2022. Musk agreed to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share in April 2022 but later tried to back out of the deal, leading the company to take legal action to enforce it. He ultimately completed the acquisition in October 2022 and rebranded Twitter to X.