US jury finds Elon Musk misled investors during Twitter acquisition
Musk's claims about fake accounts violated federal law, caused share price drop, says jury
A view of Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse as Elon Musk testifies in Twitter shareholder trial in San Francisco, California, United States on March 5, 2026.
Washington DC
A federal jury in the US state of California on Friday found Elon Musk misled investors during his 2022 acquisition of Twitter, now rebranded as X, ruling that his statements about the platform's fake account levels violated federal securities law.
The jury in San Francisco found Musk's claims about bot accounts caused an artificial decline in Twitter's share price.
But jurors rejected the broader allegation that Musk ran a general criminal scheme to defraud Twitter investors.
Musk made a $54.20-per-share offer for Twitter in April 2022, with the company confirming a deal later that month. In May 2022, he announced he was temporarily suspending the approximately $44 billion acquisition, citing a need for more details on how the social media company calculated that spam and fake accounts made up less than 5% of its total users.
Twitter's share price fell following the suspension, and legal action was subsequently filed about his statements during the process.
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