Elon Musk misled Twitter shareholders ahead of acquisition in 2022, jury finds

New York (CNN) — A California jury on Friday largely sided with Twitter shareholders who accused billionaire Elon Musk of making false statements and intentionally driving down the social media company’s stock ahead of his $44 billion acquisition in 2022. But they absolved Musk of claims of engaging in a “scheme” to defraud investors.

The decision resolves a civil class action lawsuit filed by a group of Twitter shareholders against Musk in October 2022 — weeks before he took control of the company. The weekslong trial saw Musk forced to take the stand in a San Francisco federal courthouse to defend the tumultuous takeover.

Musk first agreed to buy Twitter, now known as X, in April 2022, but then spent months fighting to get out of the purchase before ultimately completing the acquisition.

The shareholders accused Musk of deliberately driving down Twitter’s stock price with tweets and public statements in that interim period that suggested the deal might not go through. Plaintiffs, watching the stock decline in response to Musk’s comments and fearing the deal would not be completed, said they sold their stock, ultimately missing out when the acquisition was finalized.

The damages awarded by the jury are expected to amount to around $2.5 billion, depending on the number of people who submit claims to be part of the class, according to estimates from attorneys for the plaintiffs.

“We are thrilled with the jury’s decision today, which we believe is the largest securities jury verdict in United States history,” Mark Molumphy, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement to CNN. “The jury sent a strong message that no one is above the law.”

Musk plans to appeal the decision, according to lawyers for the billionaire at the firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, who noted separate, unrelated cases in Texas and Delaware where Musk recently won appeals.

“We view today’s verdict, where the jury found both for and against the plaintiffs and found no fraud scheme, as a bump in the road. And we look forward to vindication on appeal,” lawyers for Quinn Emanuel said in a statement provided to CNN by a spokesperson.

Musk’s legal team had sought to dismiss the case, denying that Musk’s statements were false and arguing that plaintiffs’ “defective” claim did not adequately connect his statements to shareholders’ losses. During the trial, Musk testified, “if this was a trial about whether I made stupid tweets, I would say I’m guilty,” according to the New York Times, although he added he did not believe the posts would cause anything “material.”

The jury found Musk liable because of two tweets: One on May 13, 2022, claiming the Twitter deal was “temporarily on hold” as he sought information about the prevalence of bot accounts on the platform, and another on May 17 claiming the deal could not move forward until he received such information.

The Twitter shareholders behind the class action were not the only ones to raise concerns about Musk’s representations related to the acquisition.

The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk in January 2025 for allegedly failing to properly disclose the extent of his ownership stake in Twitter, which allowed him to buy shares of the platform at “artificially low prices.” The SEC alleged that Musk failed to disclose within 10 days that he owned more than 5% of the company’s common stock, which he had acquired by mid-March 2022.

Musk filed to dismiss the SEC’s lawsuit last August, calling the complaint “constitutionally infirm.” Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro previously told CNN that Musk did “nothing wrong” and that the lawsuit was “an admission by the SEC that the they (sic) cannot bring an actual case.”

The-CNN-Wire
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This story has been updated with additional content.