There are more Tesla investors that are party to the lawsuit, but they are all included in the US$12 billion total. For his part, Musk has confirmed that the tweet he sent about raising capital to take Tesla private was accurate. He said that a pledge had been made by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.
 

An investor who lost $12 billion in 10 days due to Elon Musk's famous tweet in 2018 stating he had 'funding secured' to take the firm private testified during Musk's culpability trial.
 

Lawyers representing Musk, who has been on trial for three weeks in a federal court in San Francisco, have claimed that billions of dollars in damages are at risk. On Tuesday, the plaintiffs' expert witnesses spoke to the jury about how Musk's tweets in August 2018 caused Tesla's stock to fluctuate wildly, hurting investors who had both long and short positions.
 

Forensic economist Michael Hartzmark testified before the jury on the methodology he used to determine the extent to which Musk's tweets influenced the prices of Tesla securities. That's how he calculated the loss. A total of US$12 billion is expected to be paid out to Tesla investors, including those who aren't part of the class-action case.

Although he did not provide a specific figure for the number of damages sought by the plaintiffs, Hartzmark did describe how he computed losses and testified that Musk's tweets caused 'consequential injury' to investors.

The information Musk disclosed was 'material,' or essential to any reasonable investor, according to Hartzmark, who cited the queries and concerns made to the company's investor relations office at the time as evidence.
 

He explained to the jury how Tesla's share price increased following Musk's initial statement but subsequently dropped precipitously as doubts arose regarding the plan to take the business private.

A contributing factor was a general knowledge that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating Musk's comments. What Hartzmark called 'investors' deadliest adversary' was uncertainty. 'As this continued, the share price would take a beating' he warned.

The first half of Musk's post was correct; he was 'thinking' about taking Tesla private, as Musk's attorney Andrew Rossman successfully argued during the cross-examination of Hartzmark. The presiding court has previously stated that Musk's second tweet, in which he claimed to have 'financing secured,' was false.
 

Rossman probed Hartzmark on whether he separated the true impact of the tweet on Tesla's stock price from the fake impact of the part that was later debunked.

In a nutshell, 'it's all bound together,' as Hartzmark put it. He said he took a look at them jointly because Musk had already stated his intention to take Tesla private and the stock price had already reflected this before the CEO's tweet. Musk's claim that he had 'financing secured' was the sole fresh development throughout the 10 days covered by the lawsuit.
 

The jury has heard from Steven Heston, an expert on the subject of finance and a professor at the University of Maryland. The investors also had Heston testify as an expert.
 

 He revealed the results of his investigation into what happened to Tesla's stock options between the time Musk made his tweets on August 7, 2018, and the time the proposal to take the business private fell through 10 days later. During this time, he saw 'rapid' fluctuations in option pricing and 'never-before-seen' volatility in the long-term option price.

Heston showed the jury that in the month following Musk's tweet, the value of a short-term call option with a strike price of US$420—at which Musk indicated Tesla would go private—rose by nearly US$2. US$22.40 was lost on a long call that had the same stock price but expired on January 17, 2020.

According to Musk, his 'funding secured' tweet was 100% accurate. Although he lacked written evidence, he claimed that Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund had made an 'unambiguous' guarantee to back the idea to go private with billions of dollars.

Investors claim Musk broke securities laws by tweeting about his proposal to take Tesla private before he had received approval from the company's bankers. Investment banking witnesses said last week that a week after the tweet, they were still unsure of the deal's structure and funding arrangements.

US District Judge Edward Chen predicted that the case would be sent to a jury by Friday as the court session came to a close. Securities Litigation Against Tesla, Inc., In re: (Case No.) 18-cv-04865, United States District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).