Elon Musk the Liar, Caught Deceiving, Demanded to Pay Rp 44 Trillion
A court in California has ruled that Elon Musk is guilty of deceiving Twitter shareholders in a series of actions to acquire the social media company. Musk could pay compensation of up to US$2.6 billion to Twitter investors.
In the ruling announced on Friday (20/3/2026) local time, the jury in the Pampena vs Musk trial stated that Musk was proven to have misled Twitter shareholders.
Musk bought all of Twitter’s shares at US$54.2 per share. Musk then renamed Twitter to X, merged it with his newly founded AI company xAI, and finally decided to merge X with SpaceX, his rocket manufacturing and launch company.
The lawsuit against Musk relates to various statements he made on Twitter after submitting his acquisition offer in April 2022. Musk sowed doubt by stating that he was reconsidering his offer after discovering numerous robot, fake, and spam accounts on the Twitter platform.
In May, he tweeted that his offer to buy Twitter was temporarily frozen while awaiting proof from Twitter that only 5 percent of accounts on the platform were “fake accounts.” Following that tweet, Twitter’s share price plunged 10 percent.
Twitter shareholders accused Musk’s tweets on 13 and 17 May of being attempts to deceive investors. The aim was to pressure Twitter’s share price so that the company’s controllers were forced to accept the offer at a lower price.
Musk wanted to lower the acquisition price because Tesla’s share price was under pressure at the time. If he acquired Twitter at the initial price, he would have to sell far more Tesla shares than previously estimated.
Investors stated that Musk’s actions caused them to sell Twitter shares below the initial offer price of US$54.2 per share.
“This is an example of what should not be done to ordinary investors, people with pension savings, children, teachers, nurses,” said Joseph Cotchett, the lawyer for the Twitter investors, to CNBC International.
On the other hand, Musk’s lawyer, Quinn Emanuel, highlighted the jury’s ruling which found no element of fraud in the trial outcome. “This is just a small stumbling block; we hope to win on appeal.”