Elon Musk set to testify over Tesla purchase of SolarCity

On Monday, Elon Musk will take the stand to defend Tesla’s $2.5bn acquisition of SolarCity in 2016 against a shareholder lawsuit alleging the deal was rife with conflicts of interest.

In the run-up to Tesla Inc.’s 2016 acquisition of a company called SolarCity, Elon Musk hailed the deal as a “no-brainer” – a purchase that would combine the leading maker of electric vehicles with a manufacturer of solar panels that can recharge EVs. It did not exactly work out that way. On Monday in the Delaware Court of Chancery, the Tesla CEO will testify about the $2.5bn deal in a shareholder lawsuit that alleges that Tesla’s acquisition was rife with conflicts of interest, overlooked SolarCity’s fundamental weaknesses and unsurprisingly failed to produce the profits Musk had promised.