Seeing or hearing Elon Musk is not uncommon.
But at the bar of a court, and for five hours, a little more.
Tesla's chief executive attempted to explain the thought process behind his controversial 2018 "funding secured" tweet on Monday, pushing back against the idea that it was partly a joke.
Musk, Tesla and company directors are facing a shareholder lawsuit over this tweet, posted on August 7, 2018, in which the billionaire said he was considering taking Tesla private for $420 a share and that he had “secure funding” for this big buyout operation.
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420.
Funding secured.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
The title had jumped on the heels of the very unusual tweets before declining in the following days.
News articles eventually revealed that the boss didn't really have the funds.
Elon Musk had spoken to the leaders of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund about the financing he would need to take Tesla private.
However, this funding was not “secured”.
Tesla had remained listed on the stock exchange, but the CEO had to relinquish his position as executive chairman of Tesla.
And he is accused today of having inflated the share price of his company by boasting, wrongly, the prospects of the takeover.
Last week, on the first day of the trial in federal court in San Francisco, California, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, Nicholas Porritt, accused the leader of "lying" and being responsible for the investors' losses.
Lead plaintiff Glen Littleton testified last week that he lost more than 75% of his investments after the 'funding secured' tweet.
Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth Fund agreed, Musk says
On Monday, Elon Musk assured that he had "never" sought to deceive investors.
"I wasn't saying it was done, I was just saying I was considering it, thinking about it.
And that in my opinion the funding was secure,” he insisted.
The CEO of Twitter since October thought he had an agreement with the Sovereign Fund of Saudi Arabia led by Yasir Al-Rumayyan, which invests in entities important for the economic growth of the country.
After a July 31 meeting at the Tesla factory in Fremont, Calif., Yasir Al-Rumayyan had "been unequivocal in his support for Tesla's privatization," but then "appeared to backtrack," he said. -he says.
“I was very upset,” even dropped Musk, explaining to the nine members of the jury that “just with the actions of SpaceX,
I felt the funding was secured,” as he secured funding for Twitter by selling some of his Tesla stock.
“It would have broken my heart (to sell them), but I would have done so if needed,” he added.
Asked by several media, Al-Rumayyan's lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
How to believe in an agreement when no document is concluded?
Musk said that same Saudi fund had previously agreed to buy 5% of Tesla based on a handshake.
It was therefore reasonable, in his view, to expect them to act in the same way again.
Fearing that the press would expose the negotiations, Musk had tweeted the information to ensure "that all investors are on an equal footing".
Tired, Musk evokes the "karma around the 420"
On August 16, 2018, while Tesla shares were trampling at $335.45, the New York Times published an interview with Elon Musk in which he notably acknowledged that "no one on the board had reread the tweets composed since his car on the way to the airport, and that the price, $420, was a joke".
In the United States, the numbers 4 and 20 together are associated with cannabis use.
On the stand Monday, Musk denied picking the $420 price as a joke, it was about a 20% premium to the stock price at the time, he claimed.
But a little later he had this confusing sentence: “There is some karma around 420 although I have to wonder if it is good or bad karma at this point”.
Dark suit, white shirt and tie, Musk appeared hesitant, not remembering many emails and details, and often answering questions but calmly, repeating the messages he wanted to get across. to the jury.
He said he was tired from lack of sleep.
His lawyer, Alex Spiro, helped him paint the portrait of an immigrant who started from nothing, came to the United States - "where great things are possible" - after an "unhappy" childhood in South Africa.
"I've been called crazy many times," Elon Musk said after listing the companies he co-founded.
But “at this point I believe I've raised more money than anyone else in history,” he boasted, attributing his success to his “honesty” with investors.
Last May, US Judge Edward Chen ruled that Musk's message was misleading and reckless.
Musk was also sued by the United States Securities Commission (SEC, the stock market watchdog) over his tweets, leading to a combined $40 million settlement for him and Tesla and the obligation for a Tesla lawyer to screen some of his tweets in advance.