SAN FRANCISCO, March 20 (Reuters) - A U.S. federal jury found Elon Musk liable on Friday for claims he defrauded Twitter shareholders by trying to drive down the social media company’s stock price so he could renegotiate or back out of a $44 billion takeover in 2022.
The verdict from a jury in San Francisco federal court came in a closely watched civil trial where Musk, the world’s richest person, was accused of falsely claiming on social media that Twitter underreported how many fake and spam accounts, known as bots, were on its platform.
Damages have yet to be calculated but Francis Bottini, a lawyer for the shareholders, estimated they could total about $2.5 billion.
“Musk’s status as the world’s richest man is not a free pass,” Bottini said in a statement. “If you’re able to move markets with your tweets you’re responsible for the harm you cause to investors.”
In a joint statement, Musk’s lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan called the verdict “a bump in the road. And we look forward to vindication on appeal.”
