18 Jan 2023; MEMO: Court documents showed that Tesla's billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, had met with the Governor of the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund, known as the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Yasir Al-Rumayyan, on several occasions, and that Al-Rumayyan had urged Musk to turn Tesla into a private company.
According to the documents related to a case filed by Tesla shareholders regarding Musk's tweets in 2018, in which he said he had obtained financing to turn the electric car maker into a private company, Al-Rumayyan offered Musk support of up to $60 billion for this endeavour, according to Reuters.
Investors filed a lawsuit in August 2018, shortly after Musk tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private, at $420 per share. "Funding secured" he tweeted.
In another tweet on the same day, he wrote, "Investor support is confirmed," adding, "Only reason why this is not certain is that it's contingent on a shareholder vote."
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The trial is expected to last about three weeks.
In an earlier decision related to this case, a judge ruled that the famous 2018 tweet could be considered "false and misleading".
Previously, the tweets by the head of Tesla caused disputes between him and the authorities. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint following that tweet, believing that Elon Musk did not provide evidence of having the necessary financing.
The body that oversees the Stock Exchange then forced him to relinquish chairmanship of Tesla's Board of Directors, pay a $20 million fine, and later demanded that his tweets related to Tesla's activity be pre-approved by a competent attorney.
