Jury sides with Elon Musk over 2018 tweets claiming he would take Tesla private

Elon Musk and Tesla have been cleared of wrongdoing in a lawsuit over a pair of tweets from the executive that investors say cost them billions of dollars.

After less than two hours of deliberation wrapping up a three-week trial, a jury in San Francisco ruled on Friday that the Tesla CEO had not deceived investors with two tweets posted in August 2018 about a Tesla buyout that never happened.

The decision marks an important victory for Musk, who is embroiled in several lawsuits and has aggressively fought any charges that he was guilty. The executive, who now is the CEO of Twitter after purchasing the company months ago for $44bn, has repeatedly defended his ability to tweet broadly.

Loyola law professor Jessica Levinson said the case may end up influencing how other companies fight security fraud cases in the future.

She said the case could become a bellwether for companies taken to task for statements made on Twitter and similar sites.

Agencies contributed reporting