A U.S. federal judge on Monday rejected Elon Musk's request to overturn a jury verdict, Reuters reported. A jury previously found that the world's richest man defrauded Twitter investors by trying to drive down the social media company's stock price after agreeing to buy Twitter for $44 billion.
Musk
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco also denied Musk’s motion to disqualify the investors from the class action and granted the investors’ motion for prejudgment interest.However, the judge found that Musk was not responsible for one of his controversial tweets.
"Even if a spokesperson changes his or her mind about a transaction or momentarily regrets it, such concerns do not justify lying to the investing public," Breyer wrote in the ruling.
Investors accused Musk of making false claims that Twitter was flooded with fake and spam accounts in an effort to force the company to renegotiate its acquisition offer or enable him to back out of the deal. They said the comments put pressure on Twitter's stock price and caused them to lose money when they sold shares at a low price.
Lawyers for investors estimate that based on the March 20 jury verdict,Musk may ultimately have to pay about $2.6 billion in damages.
The investors' attorney, Mark Molumphy, said it was a "very good day" for public market investors because the jury "denied Musk's attempt to manipulate this market system."
Musk's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment as of press time.