Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge
Elon Musk tweets, and “regular people” watch their fortunes evaporate.
That was the argument put before a jury by lawyers representing a class of Tesla investors in opening arguments in Musk’s securities fraud trial, which kicked off today in a courtroom in San Francisco. The plaintiffs are arguing that Musk’s 2018 tweets about taking Tesla private, in which he said he had “funding secured,” led them to lose millions of dollars.
“His lies caused regular people, like Glen Littleton, to lose millions and millions of dollars,” attorney Nicholas Porritt said Wednesday, referring to the lead plaintiff in the class-action case. In order for markets to operate normally and fairly, it’s “critical that he is held — and the company is held —…
