Elon Musk trial begins

The trial investigating Elon Musk’s tweet claiming he would take Tesla private in a $72 billion (£58.7 billion) takeover is scheduled to start on Tuesday.

Tesla shareholders, who claim that Mr. Musk manipulated the company’s share price, are suing him. On Twitter in 2018, he claimed to have “financing secured” to take the automaker private. The funding, however, was not guaranteed, and Tesla was not turned private. Following the share price’s collapse, investors claimed they had lost billions of dollars as a result of the tweet.

The CEO of Tesla, however, countered that he did not engage in securities fraud because he believed he had obtained funds from the Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.