United States: Mr. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has informed the US jury that he could have taken Tesla private using funds from existing shareholders such as Oracle Corp. co-founder Mr. Larry Ellison, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, or his own fortune.

“Funding was absolutely not an issue. It was quite the opposite,” the Tesla CEO stated. Mr. Musk, however, acknowledged he did not have binding agreements with investors, leaving it to the jury to decide if he misled shareholders.

A jury of nine will decide whether the CEO artificially inflated the company’s share price by touting the buyout’s prospects.

Responding to questions from his lawyer, Mr. Alex Spiro, the CEO stated that his tweet was intended to inform investors about his interest in taking Tesla private. In addition, Mr. Musk added that he had already discussed his interest with the Tesla board and Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, and he feared it would leak to the media.

“I had no ill motive. My intent here was to do the right thing for shareholders,” the CEO commented.

“After talking to a number of investors, especially the smaller investors, they said they would prefer a Tesla that remained public, and I felt it was important to be responsive to their wishes,” Mr. Musk further stated.

The Tesla CEO testified that Mr. Dan Dees, a Goldman Sachs Group executive who he’d been talking to about the take-private plan, was very complimentary about how Mr. Musk explained his rationale in a Tesla blog post on the same day as his tweet.

Mr. Musk is accused of defrauding investors by driving up the price of Tesla stock by tweeting on August 7, 2018, that he had “funding secured” to take the electric carmaker private.

The trial is testing whether the world’s second-richest person can be held liable for his use of Twitter. Millions of dollars are at stake for shareholders who claim they suffered losses after Musk tweeted that “investor support is confirmed” for the deal.

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