A nine-person jury was seated Tuesday to hear a trial that will determine whether Tesla CEO Elon Musk cheated investors by asserting in 2018 tweets that he had lined up financing to take the electric automaker private.
The five-hour process set the stage for opening statements to begin Wednesday in the case, which is expected to include testimony from Musk to explain his thinking while engaged in one of his favorite activities -- tweeting on the Twitter service that he now owns.
In the Tesla case, Musk's tweets fueled a rally in the company's stock price that abruptly ended a week later after it became apparent that he did not have the funding for a buyout after all. Investors then sued him, saying that Tesla shares would not have swung so widely in value if he had not dangled the prospect of buying the company for $420 per share.
Musk's tweet also attracted the attention of securities regulators, who concluded that it was improper and that he was lying. In a settlement, they forced him to pay $40 million and required him to step down as Tesla chairman.
He has since contended that he entered the settlement under duress and maintains that he believed he had locked up financial backing for the buyout during meetings with representatives from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.
Even while he has been making major changes at Twitter, Musk continues to serve as CEO at Tesla and derives most of his wealth and fame from the company.
The trial hinges on an Aug. 7, 2018, tweet in which Musk claimed he had lined up financing to pay for a $72 billion buyout of Tesla, which he then amplified with a follow-up statement that made a deal seem imminent.
But the buyout never materialized, and now Musk will have to explain his actions under oath in a federal court in San Francisco. The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of investors who owned Tesla stock for a 10-day period in August 2018.
The trial's outcome may turn on the jury's interpretation of Musk's motive for the tweets, which U.S. District Judge Edward Chen has already decided were false.
The judge dealt Musk another setback on Friday, when he rejected Musk's bid to transfer the trial to a federal court in Texas, where Tesla moved its headquarters in 2021. Musk had argued that negative coverage of his Twitter purchase had poisoned the jury pool in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The challenge of finding jurors without strong feelings about Musk became evident during Tuesday's painstaking selection process.
At one point, the judge flagged some prospective jurors who had expressed extreme misgivings or enthusiasm about Musk in pretrial questionnaires. Seven jurors were questioned individually, away from the rest of the jury pool, to reduce the chances of influencing the opinions of others in the courtroom.
Chen and lawyers for both the shareholders and Musk ended up grilling seven of those jurors, who variously described Musk as "arrogant," "narcissistic," "unpredictable," "a little off his rocker," "a mercenary" and "a genius."
Musk's leadership of Twitter -- where he has gutted the staff and alienated users and advertisers -- has proven unpopular among Tesla's current stockholders, who are worried that he has been devoting less time to automaker at a time of intensifying competition.
Those concerns contributed to a 65% percent decline in Tesla's stock last year that wiped out more than $700 billion in shareholder wealth -- far more than the $14 billion swing in fortune that occurred between the company's high and low stock prices from Aug. 7 to Aug. 17, 2018, the period covered in the lawsuit.
Tesla's stock has split twice since then, making that $420 price worth $28 on adjusted basis now. The shares closed last week at $122.40, down from the company's November 2021 split-adjusted peak of $414.50.
After Musk dropped the idea of a Tesla buyout, the company overcame a production problem, resulting in a rapid upturn in car sales that caused its stock to soar and made Musk the world's richest person until he bought Twitter. Musk dropped from the top spot on the wealth list after a stock market backlash to his handling of Twitter.
The trial is likely to provide insights into Musk's management style, given that the witness list includes some of Tesla's current and former top executives and board members, including luminaries such as Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and James Murdoch, the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The drama may shed light on Musk's relationship with his brother, Kimbal, who is also on the list of potential witnesses. The trial is expected to last until early February.
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A children's book written by British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been withdrawn from sale after it was criticized for causing offense to Indigenous Australians.
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Tenty-five of the 43 monkeys bred for medical research that escaped a compound in South Carolina have been recovered, officials said Sunday.
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The union representing some 1,200 dockworkers at the Port of Montreal has overwhelmingly rejected a deal with their employers association.
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A man who was critically injured in a police-involved shooting in Hamilton late Sunday afternoon has died in hospital, says the province鈥檚 police watchdog.
Police in Newfoundland say a man was electrocuted Saturday by a downed power wire about 10 kilometres north of St. John's, N.L.
Applause erupted over and over at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg Sunday as the son of Murray Sinclair, a former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, spoke about his father.
Nova Scotia's New Democratic Party says a candidate criticized by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs for "troubling" and "damaging" social media posts is no longer running for the party in the Nov. 26 general election.
Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club has been brimming in the last 48 hours with two kinds of people: those angling for a job in the president-elect鈥檚 incoming administration, and those trying to influence him into hiring their picks for the top spots.
Much of the U.S. federal workforce is on edge and bracing itself for the likelihood its ranks will be purged when President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
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Thousands of Spaniards marched in the eastern city of Valencia on Saturday to demand the resignation of the regional president in charge of the emergency response to last week's catastrophic floods that left more than 200 dead and others missing.
Paris police said Sunday that 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for a France-Israel soccer match to ensure security in and around the stadium and on public transportation a week after violence against Israeli fans in Amsterdam.
Gunmen open fired in a bar in central Mexico killing 10 people and injuring seven, a local official said.
Murray Sinclair鈥檚 family members say the late justice and senator has been laid to rest according to his wishes.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced voters in Cloverdale鈥擫angley City will pick their next member of Parliament on Dec. 16.
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Researchers say taking a peek inside a person's brain is as difficult as understanding the universe or discovering the ocean in its entirety.
B.C. health officials say they have detected Canada's first-ever case of H5 avian influenza in a human.
Bernadett 'Bett'鈥 Szab贸, a 19-year-old Hungarian sex worker, was murdered in the Dutch capital in 2009. Now, more than 15 years after her death, police are hoping to uncover new information about her killing.
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Bitcoin on Sunday hit a new record above US$80,000. The world鈥檚 largest cryptocurrency surged in the run-up to Tuesday鈥檚 US presidential election, rose sharply immediately on election night after it became clear Donald Trump would win and has continued rising in the days since his victory.
Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia's ports since Monday.
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A Vancouver designer is making waves in the architectural world with an outdoor modular building created to address the city鈥檚 unrelenting housing crisis.
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A Maui man who lost a part of his leg to a shark bite is now out of the hospital and thanking those who saved his life and helped him recover.
Select Porsche owners in Canada have been told to stop driving their cars immediately and to seek repairs after an issue was identified that could cause wheels to separate from vehicles.
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Ten-thousand hand-knit poppies were taken from the Sanctuary Arts Centre and displayed on the fence surrounding the Dartmouth Cenotaph on Monday.
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A group of former NHL players faced off against York Regional Police officers in Newmarket Sunday afternoon to raise funds for Special Olympics programs across the province.
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The union for locked-out port workers in British Columbia says the BC Maritime Employers Association cut off talks in less than an hour Saturday, refusing to budge on a final offer that the union has so far rejected.
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The Southern Alberta Recreation Association is officially announcing the Town of Taber as next year鈥檚 host for the Southern Alberta Summer Games.
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Police have arrested a 15-year-old in connection with a break-in and $50,000 in damage done to the Centennial Arena in Elliot Lake in September.
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Police in Newfoundland say a man was electrocuted Saturday by a downed power wire about 10 kilometres north of St. John's, N.L.
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A Memorial University scientist says the mysterious white blobs washing up on Newfoundland beaches are actually gobs of plastic -- and they need to be cleaned up.
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