US JURY: MUSK DELIBERATELY HARMED TWITTER SHAREHOLDERS

SAN JOSE (California), March 21 (Bernama-dpa) -- Tech billionaire Elon Musk has suffered a defeat in a trial concerning his actions during his acquisition of Twitter, which he has since re-branded as X, reported German news agency dpa. 

A jury at a district court in San Francisco on Friday found that Musk had violated a securities law with two misleading statements in 2022. 

As this drove down the share price, Musk could be made to pay substantial compensation to shareholders. Musk can appeal the decision.

"We view today's verdict, where the jury found both for and against the plaintiffs and found no fraud scheme, as a bump in the road. And we look forward to vindication on appeal," broadcaster CNBC quoted Musk's attorneys as saying in a statement.

The tech billionaire had initially proposed to buy Twitter before backing out of the takeover in April 2022, saying the social media company had made false claims about the number of fake accounts on its platform.

Twitter took Musk to court in response to force him to go through with the deal and in the end Musk completed the purchase at the agreed price of around US$44 billion at the end of October 2022.

Friday's decision relates to a class action brought by some Twitter shareholders who accused Musk of deliberately manipulating the company's share price with his statements. 

The jury calculated the amount by which Musk's words had artificially depressed the Twitter share price on individual days between May and October 2022.

It will be later determined how much compensation Musk should pay to the shareholders. The figure could be hundreds of millions or even several billion dollars. 

Musk's fortune, which largely consists of shares in the electric car manufacturer Tesla and the space company SpaceX, is currently estimated by the financial service Bloomberg at about US$640 billion. 

--BERNAMA-dpa