Elon Musk defends tweets in lawsuit alleging they caused Twitter stock to fall before acquisition

SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk continued to defend his actions in court Thursday in the months leading up to his 2022 acquisition of Twitter as he faces a class-action lawsuit that claims he misled investors and caused them to lose millions of dollars.

The civil lawsuit in San Francisco centers on a class-action lawsuit filed just before Musk seized control of Twitter, a social media service he renamed X, in October 2022, six months after agreeing to buy the struggling company for $44 billion, or $54.20 per share.

The lawsuit, which represents Twitter shareholders who sold their stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, revolves around allegations that Musk violated federal securities laws when he took a series of calculated steps to depress the company’s stock price in order to break the deal or wrangle for a lower sales price.

Taking the podium for the second day, Musk continued to double down on his claim that the number of fake and spam accounts on Twitter is much higher than the 5% announced in regulatory filings.

The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter was not new at the time Musk was negotiating the deal. The company paid $809.5 million in 2021 to cover allegations that it exaggerated its growth rate and monthly user figures. While Twitter has also been disclosing bot predictions to the Securities and Exchange Commission for years, it also warned that its prediction might be too low.

But Musk and some outside analysts say that figure is much higher, at least 20%. Musk said saying the number of bots was at least that high was like “saying the grass is green or the sky is blue.”

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to the text.