US jury finds Elon Musk misled Twitter shareholders

US federal jury in California found on Friday that Elon Musk misled Twitter shareholders in an effort to drive down the company's share price as he was poised to buy it in a $44 billion deal. Jurors agreed with the plaintiff that Musk violated a securities rule that bars false and misleading statements that artificially drive down a stock price.

The civil complaint also accused Musk of driving down Twitter's stock price to get out of the deal completely, causing people who sold shares to lose money. Musk dropped his attempt to exit the deal in late 2022 after Twitter pursued legal action to enforce the agreement. He had since integrated the platform with his artificial intelligence venture xAI and his space exploration company SpaceX.