Elon Musk told a jury that his 2018 tweet announcing a proposal to take Tesla Inc. private included the possibility of using his holdings in SpaceX to help finance the transaction, along with a multibillion-dollar commitment by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.
As the star witness in a securities fraud trial in San Francisco, the Tesla CEO was defending the famous tweet in which he said he was considering taking the electric-car maker private and had “funding secured.” Investors have alleged the tweets were lies that cost them big losses from wild stock price swings over a 10-day period before the plan was abandoned.
Musk testified Monday that the Saudi Public Investment Fund was “unequivocal” in its support of the transaction and said the fund could afford to provide tens of billions of dollars in financing. Pressed further by a lawyer for the investors, Nicholas Porritt, over why there was nothing in writing about that, Musk said: “If they say they’re going to do something, they do. A signed document is neither here nor there.”
