Tesla chair testifies she would have quit if Musk had lied in 2018 tweets

He and Tesla also paid $40 million in penalties to settle the allegations. They did not admit wrongdoing.
 

Denholm said that as the potential buyer, Musk was free to tweet about the deal.

“Because he was tweeting on behalf of himself, the policy doesn’t apply,” Denholm said, referring to a Tesla policy requiring disclosures by insiders to be vetted by the company ahead of time.

Musk told the jury earlier this week he could have financed the potential deal from existing Tesla investors as well as a Saudi wealth fund.

“Funding was absolutely not an issue,” Musk told the jury. “It was quite the opposite.”

Musk, however, acknowledged he did not have binding agreements with investors for specified amounts, leaving it to the jury to decide if he misled shareholders.

Egon Durban, the co-CEO of private equity firm Silver Lake, testified earlier on Friday that he had advised Musk on the going-private proposal, but that there were uncertainties as to whether the transaction could proceed.

There was no written commitment by investors despite their interest, he said.

Dan Dees, a banker at Goldman Sachs GS.N, also testified on Friday. The “funding secured” tweet came as a surprise to him, as Goldman, which had long worked with Tesla, was not involved in the deal.

A jury of nine will decide whether Musk artificially inflated the company’s share price by touting the buyout’s prospects, and if so, by how much.

The buyout deal never came together because investors, particularly retail shareholders, expressed their interest in keeping the company public, according to testimony by Musk.

The trial is scheduled to resume on Tuesday.