Elon Musk testified that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund “unequivocally” wanted to take Tesla Inc. private in 2018, a core element of his defense to claims that his tweets about the take-private plan misled shareholders.
The shareholders contend in a class-action lawsuit that the tweets were lies that cost them big losses from wild stock price swings over a 10-day period before the plan was abandoned.
As he resumed testifying Monday after a brief appearance on the witness stand Friday, Musk told jurors that he had discussions with the Saudi Public Investment Fund about the transaction. He said the amount required for the fund was “potentially” less than $10 billion. Court filings indicate that Musk himself owned about 19% of Tesla at the time. The billionaire would have needed more than 50% to take the company private.
