As Tesla CEO Musk bids for Twitter, his fight to tweet freely hits a snag

Tesla CEO Elon Musk earned the nickname “Teflon Elon” by successfully fighting off multiple legal challenges. But a recent court ruling suggests his run of personal victories may be endangered. Last week, it was revealed that a San Francisco judge had determined that one of Musk’s 2018 tweets about taking his firm private was a lie. It’s one of at least a dozen high-profile cases that Tesla or Musk are involved in years after he posted the infamous “funding secured” tweet, sending shares soaring and inviting the wrath of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. As Musk ramps up his battle to buy Twitter, the lingering ramifications of his prior use of the social media platform may come back to haunt him. The judge’s decision tips the scales heavily in favour of Tesla investors who are suing Musk and Tesla for as much as $12 billion in trading losses they blame on the go-private tweets. That case is set for a jury trial in January. The decision poses a threat to Musk’s effort to unleash himself from oversight by the SEC — a quest so personal that he became visibly emotional while lambasting the agency at a TED talk in Canada last week.