Musk Appears Unlikely to Undo Twitter Securities Fraud Verdict

Elon Musk faces an uphill battle in his bid to undo a jury verdict finding he misled Twitter investors during his 2022 purchase of the social media platform by tweeting the $44 billion deal was temporarily “on hold.”

Judge Charles R. Breyer at a hearing Thursday in San Francisco federal court said he was unconvinced of Musk’s post-trial motions to toss out the jury’s determination, and he expressed skepticism of Musk’s attempt to wipe out the damages award, which could amount to $2.6 billion.

“It is readily apparently to the court that Mr. Musk is liable,” Breyer said at the hearing. “The misrepresentations as charged are false, as the jury found.”

The class action securities fraud case centered on Musk’s tweets and public statements amid his contentious, months-long takeover where he criticized the company and cast doubt on whether he would follow through with the purchase.

A jury in March took three days of deliberations to determine that Musk intentionally misled Twitter shareholders with a May 13, 2022 tweet stating he was pausing the deal while he reviewed Twitter’s fake account metrics which drove down the share price and caused some investors to sell at a loss. The jury also found Musk liable for posting another tweet that month criticizing the company’s methodology for counting fake accounts.

The eight-person jury panel also awarded damages by following the calculations of the investors’ expert witness who determined the dollar amount that Musk’s statements depressed Twitter’s stock for each trading day between May 13 and the final buyout of the company in October.

“To say that the deal is on hold when it was not, to say that Twitter had to establish the accuracy of its financial representations when it did not, would and did affect the market,” Breyer said at the hearing, held in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. “This is a very simple case that is supported by ample evidence.”

Twitter eventually sued Musk that summer in Delaware to force his follow through with the purchase, and the stock remained volatile over those months, reaching a low of $32.52 per share, around 40% less than Musk’s buyout price. Musk eventually agreed to complete the deal at the original price of $54.20 per share.

The jury’s verdict didn’t provide a clear damages total, which will be determined at a later date as investors come forward to make claims. One of the plaintiff’s lead trial attorneys Mark Molumphy of Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP said after the verdict that he estimated the damages will amount to $2.6 billion. But even those billions would only represent a tiny fraction of Musk’s wealth, which recently surpassed $1 trillion.

At the Thursday hearing, Breyer noted that while the investors presented an expert witness at trial to calculate damages, Musk’s legal team didn’t provide their own witness to counter those calculations.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP represents Musk.

The case is Pampena v. Musk, N.D. Cal., No. 3:22-cv-05937, 6/18/26.