By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Closing arguments are set to kick off Tuesday in a trial pitting Elon Musk against Twitter shareholders who say the world’s richest man engaged in a pattern of deceptive behavior that misled investors as he attempted to back out of his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform in 2022.
The civil trial in San Francisco centers on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk took control of Twitter, which he later renamed X, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the embattled company for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share. The price represents a sliver of the Tesla CEO’s fortune, now estimated at $839 billion.
Much of the trial focused on Musk’s claims about the number of bots on Twitter. Musk testified, as he long contended, that Twitter had a much higher number of fake and spam accounts than the 5% it disclosed in regulatory filings. He used what he called Twitter’s misrepresentation of the number of fake accounts on its service as a reason to retreat from the purchase.
After Musk tried to back out, Twitter went to court in Delaware to force him to honor his original deal. Just before that case was scheduled to go to trial, Musk reversed course again and agreed to pay what he had originally promised.
The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter wasn’t new at the time Musk negotiated the deal. The company had paid $809.5 million in 2021 to settle claims it was overstating its growth rate and monthly user figures. Twitter also disclosed its bot estimates to the Securities and Exchange Commission for years while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.
But Musk claimed the number was much higher, at least 20% according to some analysts. Saying the bot number was at least this high was like “saying the grass is green or the sky is blue,” Musk said.
Twitter’s former CFO Ned Segal disputed this claim and said on the witness stand that the number was actually closer to 1%.
Asked if Twitter ever filed false filings to the SEC that misstated its spam numbers, Segal said it did not. But he mentioned that the company once restated its finances after it became aware of a mistake in its calculation of daily users. In 2017, Twitter said it had been overstating its monthly user numbers by mistake because it was including users of a third-party app it should not have.
On Monday, the two sides met to go over instructions to the jury. Judge Charles R. Breyer noted that many in the jury pool had negative views on Musk. But, he added, a person who is “not universally liked” still deserves a fair trial, and should not to be treated in a discriminatory or prejudicial way.