Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has been exonerated of any wrongdoing related to a tweet in which he claimed to have “funding secured” to return the electric car maker to private ownership.
Investors said he misled them with his articles in August 2018 and that as a result, they had lost billions of dollars.
The planned $72 billion (£60 billion) takeover never happened.
Musk might have been made to pay billions of dollars in damages if proven at fault.
On Friday afternoon, the nine jurors took less than two hours to decide on the class-action complaint.
Mr. Musk, who had said he couldn’t obtain a fair trial in San Francisco and wanted the trial transferred to Texas, where Tesla is based, applauded the verdict.
He posted on Twitter, a social media site he acquired for $44 billion in October: “Thank goodness, the wisdom of the people has prevailed!
“I am deeply appreciative of the jury’s unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 take-private case.”
Central to the lawsuit was Mr Musk’s tweet on 7 August 2018: “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.”
When Mr. Musk tweeted later in the day that “investor support is confirmed,” the plaintiffs claimed he had lied.
Following the tweets, the stock price rose, but it soon started to decline once it became evident that the deal would not go through.
When many people made decisions about purchasing and selling their shares based on the tweet, investor losses were estimated as high as $12 billion, according to an economist hired by the shareholders.
In response to Mr. Musk’s tweets, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued him, alleging that he had misled investors. In exchange for $20 million, Mr. Musk consented to resign as chairman of the Tesla board.
Mr. Musk, who also oversees SpaceX and Twitter, had maintained during the three-week trial that he believed he had a verbal commitment for the sale from Saudi Arabia’s national wealth fund.
The second-richest person in the world said the following throughout his nearly nine hours on the witness stand: “Just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly.”
Investors objected that the phrase “funding secured” implied more than a verbal agreement.
