Tesla Inc. is seeking to call the chief of Saudia Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as a defense witness for a trial over claims Elon Musk defrauded shareholders by falsely tweeting more than four years ago that he had a plan to take the automaker private.
(Bloomberg) — Tesla Inc. is seeking to call the chief of Saudia Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as a defense witness for a trial over claims Elon Musk defrauded shareholders by falsely tweeting more than four years ago that he had a plan to take the automaker private.
The subpoena was served to Yasir Al-Rumayyan ahead of jury selection set to begin Jan. 17 in San Francisco.
Investors suing Tesla and Musk, its chief executive officer, argue that his August 2018 tweets about taking Tesla private with “funding secured” were “indisputably false” and cost them billions of dollars by spurring wild swings in Tesla’s stock price. Musk has maintained that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had agreed to support his attempt to take Tesla private.
Text messages between Al-Rumayyan and Musk revealed in an April court filing showed that Musk was upset because he believed he’d reached a handshake agreement with the governor of the Saudi PIF weeks earlier, in July 2018, to fund the transaction.
‘Weak Sauce’: Elon Musk’s 2018 Feud With Saudi Fund Revealed
In addition to Al-Rumayyan, Tesla served subpoenas in December on three other PIF officials — Turqi Alnowaise, Saad Al Jarboa and Naif Al Mogren.
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