Riverboat Musk Gambles On Jury & Wins

Tesla Musk tests courts again & tweets he tweaked the twits who sued him for being overly open about his options in taking the EV maker private. But, does jury verdict vindicate him after $20M SEC rip off, er, settlement?

As the WSJ coverage noted, “Jury finds investors failed to prove their claims against the CEO or the electric-car company,” even though Mr. Musk had settled with the SEC over the same claim, albeit he says because the fed agency “pressured” him to do so. Translated, that means Musk thought the SEC had already decided to be judge & jury in its administrative court & would impose a $20M fine regardless. But, as he said in a deposition, he did his earlier tweeting because: “I was trying my best to keep shareholders informed [not mislead them] & ensure all shareholders had the same information.”

The 9 jurors bought Mr. Musk’s take & were not moved in the class action seeking “billions”, in which one plaintiff investor testified at trial: The Musk tweets “represented a threat to my livelihood;” based on them he liquidated some positions costing him big time. But, the jury foreman, we’re told, wasn’t persuaded by such arguments. He concluded, “The overall message, it just didn’t land.” Well, considering that at least 98% of such civil suits are “settled” before trial so that both sides can avoid a potential embarrassing loss & claim some kind of victory, Mr. Musk (as he’s often done in the past in other lawsuits) refused to deal, rolled the dice in belief the jury & jury system could work in his favor … and it did.

Davd Soul