United States: Mr. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, has been cleared of wrongdoing by a San Francisco jury for tweeting that he had “funding secured” to take the electric carmaker private.

Mr. Musk faced a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Tesla shareholders who argued that the CEO misled them with his posts in August 2018. If the jury had found Mr. Musk liable, he could have been ordered to pay billions of dollars in damages.

The Twitter owner tweeted in response to the jury decision that “thank goodness, the wisdom of the people has prevailed.”

“I am deeply appreciative of the jury’s unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 take-private case,” Mr. Musk added.

After three hours of arguments wrapped up, a nine-person jury began its deliberations in the civil case centred on two tweets Mr. Musk posted on August 7, 2018, about a Tesla buyout that never happened. The stock price surged after the tweets but fell back again within days as it became clear the deal would not go through. According to an economist hired by the shareholders, investor losses were calculated at as much as $12 billion.

During the three-week trial, Mr. Musk argued that he believed he had a verbal commitment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund for the deal.

During his nearly nine hours on the witness stand, the world’s second-richest man remarked that “just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly.”

Mr. Alex Spiro, the CEO’s attorney, conceded that the 2018 tweets were “technically inaccurate” and added that “just because it’s a bad tweet doesn’t make it a fraud.”