Elon Musk Could Likely Lose Billions Following His 'Tesla Private' Tweet

Elon Musk's 2018 controversial tweet about Tesla going private resurfaced after shareholders got alarmed about its possibility.

According to the post, the business tycoon wants to take Tesla private at $420. He adds that the funding for the plan is already "secured" for the bid at that time.

However, it does not look appealing to the shareholders, and he might lose billions of dollars when he gets sued.

Elon Musk Has More to Lose

According to a report by The Independent, the lawyers of Musk note that some people are using the second world's richest man after his tweets drove "regular" investors to lose millions of dollars.

It should be noted that the US Securities and Exchange Commission is aware of the rules about the companies. According to the policy, the firms should not disclose their plans to the public, especially if the discussion among executives is not yet over.

The same rule also applies to companies if they think there's no assurance that their financing plan will materialize.

Basically, the trial will be settled depending on the judges' decision over the intent of Musk's post on Twitter.

What the 2018 Tweet Contains

According to Musk, Tesla is about to undergo a huge transformation after finishing a meeting with some officials in Saudi.

The Tesla founder thinks that the automaker should go private. He believes it's about time to transition to this state because he already has "secured funding" for it.

"I left the July 31st meeting with no question that a deal with the Saudi sovereign fund could be closed, and that it was just a matter of getting the process moving. This is why I referred to "funding secured" in the August 7th announcement," Musk said in a tweet.

Just a few days after he tweeted about the "Tesla Private" Musk claimed that he was thrown "under the bus" by the governor of Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi.

Of course, the funding was never an issue for Tesla, as Musk's lawyers stated. However, the company's plan to go private did not sound good to the investors, so they decided to ditch the plan.

In April 2022, Musk's tweets were flagged "false and misleading" by Edward Chen, a US District Court Judge.

Twitter in Shambles Amid Debt Payment Fiasco

Musk's tweets have a bearing on investors, given their power. It could mean that a single post could result in the rise or drop of a cryptocurrency's price.

The share price of Tesla reportedly declined by $14 billion after his 2018 tweet. While the judges were keen over Musk's intent on his post, his lawyers claimed that the "funding secured" post was made out of "sporadic thoughts."

According to Bloomberg, Musk might be facing one of the biggest problems that Twitter is facing now. The article says that the billionaire has "more to lose" if he attempts to skip the debt payment for the microblogging platform.

Just recently, Musk said there's about $1 billion of cash left for Twitter.