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Jury Finds Musk Liable for Misleading Twitter Shareholders During Takeover Fight

By  |  March 22, 2026

A federal jury in San Francisco found Elon Musk liable on Friday in a civil case brought by Twitter shareholders who accused him of misleading investors during his 2022 bid to buy the social media company, according to Reuters. The case centered on claims that Musk made statements about fake and spam accounts on Twitter that drove the company’s stock price lower as he sought to renegotiate or potentially exit the $44 billion deal, according to Reuters.

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    The verdict followed a closely watched trial in U.S. federal court, where shareholders argued that Musk used social media posts to cast doubt on Twitter’s public reporting about bots on the platform, per Reuters. Damages have not yet been determined, but Francis Bottini, an attorney for the shareholders, estimated the potential total at about $2.5 billion, according to Reuters.

    “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.”

    Musk’s legal team at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan downplayed the outcome and indicated they would challenge it, calling the verdict “a bump in the road. And we look forward to vindication on appeal.”

    The trial began on March 2, and jurors started deliberating on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Musk has a long record of fighting shareholder lawsuits in court instead of settling them, per Reuters. That includes a 2023 trial in San Francisco over his 2018 statement that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private, as well as litigation in Delaware involving his $139 billion Tesla compensation package. Musk prevailed in both of those disputes, according to Reuters.

    Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter in October 2022 and later rebranded the company as X, according to Reuters.

    Related: Trial Examines Elon Musk’s 2022 Attempt to Abandon Twitter Deal

    Jurors concluded that Musk was liable for two of three statements challenged by shareholders, according to Reuters. One of those statements said the Twitter acquisition was “temporarily on hold” until there was confirmation that bots accounted for less than 5% of users. Another said the bot figure could be “much” higher than 20% and that the takeover could not proceed unless Twitter’s chief executive showed the number was below 5%, per Reuters.

    At the same time, the jury found that shareholders did not prove a separate allegation that Musk had engaged in a broader scheme to defraud them, according to Reuters. During the trial, Musk attorney Michael Lifrak argued that Musk’s concerns about bot activity were genuine and that publicly discussing the issue did not amount to fraud or intent to deceive, per Reuters.

    The lawsuit covers investors who said they sold Twitter shares between May 13 and October 4, 2022, at prices they claim were artificially depressed by Musk’s comments, according to Reuters.

    Musk is also in discussions to settle a separate civil lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which alleges he waited too long in 2022 to disclose his initial Twitter share purchases, allowing him to buy more stock at lower prices before the market became aware of his position, according to Reuters.

    In February, SpaceX purchased Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, which housed X, in a deal that created what was described as the world’s most valuable private company, worth about $1.25 trillion at the time, according to Reuters.

    Source: Reuters