Twitter trial accusing Musk of driving down stock set for closing arguments

The civil trial centres on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, which was renamed X.

Closing arguments are set to begin in a trial in the United States pitting Elon Musk against shareholders of Twitter, now known as X, who say the world’s richest man engaged in a pattern of deceptive behaviour that misled investors as he attempted to back out of his $44bn deal to buy the social media platform in 2022.

The arguments are set for Tuesday.

The civil trial in San Francisco centres on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, which he later renamed, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44bn, or $54.20 per share. The price represents a fraction of the Tesla CEO’s fortune, now estimated at $839bn.

Much of the trial focused on Musk’s claims about the number of bots on Twitter. Musk testified, as he has long contended, that Twitter had a much higher number of fake and spam accounts than the 5 percent it disclosed in regulatory filings. He used what he called Twitter’s misrepresentation of the number of fake accounts on its service as a reason to retreat from the purchase.

After Musk tried to back out, Twitter went to court in Delaware to force him to honour his original deal. Just before that case was scheduled to go to trial, Musk reversed course again and agreed to pay what he had originally promised.