US judge rejects Elon Musk’s bid to set aside Twitter fraud verdict

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday rejected Elon Musk’s bid to dismiss a recent jury verdict finding that the world’s richest person defrauded Twitter investors when buying the social media company, despite finding that Musk was not liable for one of his challenged tweets.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco also denied Musk’s motion to decertify the class of investors, and granted the investors’ motion for prejudgment interest.

Lawyers for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk was found liable on March 20 for ‌trying to drive down Twitter’s stock price so he could renegotiate or back out of his $44 billion takeover of the social media company in 2022.

Jurors found Musk liable for statements he tweeted on May 13 and May 17, 2022, in which he questioned whether Twitter was overrun by fake and spam accounts, known as bots.

Breyer found “substantial evidence of falsity” in the May 13 tweet, which caused Twitter’s stock price to fall significantly, but said a lack of market reaction to the May 17 tweet meant Musk was not liable for it.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs had estimated in March following the verdict that damages could total about $2.5 billion.