Former Twitter shareholders who sold between May and October 2022 said Musk drove down the stock to get leverage over the price. On 20 March 2026, a jury in San Francisco found him liable over his 13 May 2022 tweet that the deal was “temporarily on hold.” It rejected the claim that he ran a broader scheme, and found a podcast statement was not misleading. [1][2]
The verdict form set the stock’s inflation, or deflation, per share by day, including $6.17 a share on 13 May. [2]
In July 2026, the judge rejected most of Musk’s post-trial challenges. The judge set aside liability for one other tweet, from 17 May, and kept the 13 May finding. A claims firm estimated total damages at about $2.6 billion; that is an estimate, not a judgment amount. [3][4]
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