Elon Musk has acknowledged that the tweet at the center of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit over his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter “may not have been my wisest” as the world’s richest man defends himself from allegations of market manipulation in court.
He told a San Francisco jury on Wednesday that his post was not intended to manipulate Twitter’s stock price in the midst of the takeover battle.
A group of Twitter investors has alleged they lost money after Musk threatened to walk away from the deal to gain leverage during takeover talks, despite being aware he would be legally forced to complete the $44 billion buyout.
After signing a binding agreement to buy the company in April 2022 and waiving his rights to conduct due diligence, Musk soon started raising concerns about the number of bots on the platform.
On May 13 he tweeted the deal was “temporarily on hold” unless the company could prove that “spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.” The stock fell 9 percent when markets opened that day.
The trial marks the latest instance of legal scrutiny around Musk’s prolific use of Twitter, which he has since rebranded as X and merged with his other companies xAI and SpaceX.
Musk said the post was made in the early hours of the morning and he did not run it past any advisers or friends first.
“It may not have been my wisest tweet,” Musk told the court. “I am not sure I would call it incredibly stupid… but if it led to this trial, it probably qualifies as such.”
Musk said his “on hold” comments were literal and akin to saying he would be late to a meeting, not that he would not turn up. He added he did not consider whether investors would believe the takeover was now in doubt.