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Jurors found Twitter owner Musk guilty of tweets in which he questioned whether the platform was filled with fake accounts and spam that led to a drop in share prices.
Published on 6 Jul 2026
A US federal judge has rejected Elon Musk’s bid to overturn a jury verdict that Musk, the world’s richest man, defrauded Twitter investors in an attempt to drive down the company’s value after agreeing to a $44bn settlement.
US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco, California on Monday also denied Musk’s request to present a group of investors, and granted the investors’ interest in damages. The judge found Musk not guilty of one of the impugned tweets.
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“Even if the speaker changes or complains for a while about the action, such problems do not mean lying to the investors,” Breyer said.
A lawyer for the investors estimated following the verdict on March 20 that the damages could be around $2.6bn.
Musk’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mark Molumphy, a lawyer for the investors, called it a “great day” for investors in the public markets, after the judges “rejected Musk’s efforts to play the game”.
Musk changed the name of Twitter to X, and it is now part of his rocket and satellite company SpaceX. He is also facing charges in Manhattan, New York City, alleging that he defrauded Twitter investors by waiting too long to disclose his initial investment, allowing him to buy cheap shares and then sell them at lower prices.
‘false’
The jury found Musk guilty of May 13 and May 17, 2022, tweets in which they questioned whether Twitter was filled with fake accounts and spam, known as bots.
A May 13 tweet said purchases were “on hold” pending more information on whether bots represent less than 5 percent of users.
A second tweet said the number of bots could be much higher than 20 percent, and that the purchase “can’t go forward” until a Twitter executive confirms it was under 5 percent.
Marketers said Musk did this to force Twitter to renegotiate its terms, or leave him. They said that the first tweet caused Twitter’s share price to drop by 18 percent in two days of trading, causing them to lose money when they sold their shares at depressed prices.
Breyer found “a lot of false evidence” in a May 13 tweet, and said, “Judges could conclude that Musk intended to get out of the existing contract and used bots as an excuse to do so.”
The judge agreed with Musk that the lack of market exposure to the May 17 tweet meant that it did not result in a financial loss.
‘420’ to say
Breyer also rejected Musk’s claim that the judges were “disrespecting” him and using the verdict to “send a message” by showing the number “$4.20” in bright blue on the verdict form.
The number 420 is associated with marijuana or the culture of cannabis, and Musk often uses it in interviews, tweets and in commercials.
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter valued the company at $54.20 per share. In another example, Musk’s 2018 tweet that he “got money” to buy his electric car company Tesla for $420 per share sparked a fraud case by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which he later dismissed.
The judge, however, said it was “not clear” that the jury was biased against Musk, saying that they deliberated for about four days and agreed with Musk on some of the terms. Breyer also found no evidence that 420 was inconsistent with Musk.
“In fact, 420 refers to marijuana/marijuana,” Breyer said. “One only has to travel to San Francisco on April 20 to see how much the festival is going on.”
