Elon Musk faces a legal battle with investors who believe they were wronged by his comments, four years after he tweeted that he would take Tesla public as he already faced the wrath of authorities, AFP reported.

“Elon Musk, the (then) CEO of Tesla, lied, and because of his lies, people lost millions of dollars,” criticized Nicholas Porritt, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, the investors gathered in the class action.

On August 10, 2018, they filed a complaint against the business leader, alleging that he “artificially manipulated Tesla’s stock price to completely screw over investors” who were betting on the price falling.

The fraud trial began Tuesday in San Francisco with the selection of a nine-person jury and is expected to last three weeks. Elon Musk is on the witness list.

He caused a stir on August 7, 2018, when he announced that he wanted to delist the group when the share price reached $420.

He added that funding had been “secured” for the operation, and a few days later he clarified that he was in talks with, in particular, Saudi Arabia’s national capital fund.

The electric car maker’s stock price jumped to $386.48 after the event. It fell back to $335.45 on Aug. 16, according to data presented to a jury Tuesday by Judge Edward Chen.

– “Misleading statements” –

“The plaintiffs intend to prove that the defendant made false or misleading statements that caused them harm and that they suffered damages during that period,” the judge said.

In addition to Elon Musk, Tesla as a legal entity and members of the manufacturer’s board of directors at the time of the events also appear in these proceedings.

For the past four and a half years, Elon Musk has not stopped giving explanations for this famous tweet.

Tesla quickly abandoned the idea of ​​delisting, but the US stock exchange regulator, the SEC, filed a complaint, saying the owner had failed to provide proof of funding.

“These misleading statements led to significant disruption in the market within minutes of the tweet,” the SEC’s Stephen Paikin said at a news conference.

The regulator asked Elon Musk to step down as Tesla’s chairman, pay a $20 million fine, and later required that his tweets directly related to Tesla’s business be pre-approved by a competent lawyer.

In the spring, the multibillionaire tried again to get this decision overturned, but unsuccessfully.

But government intervention has not dampened his appetite for challenges at Twitter, his beloved social network, which he bought in October after months of turmoil and the threat of a lawsuit.