Musk, Tesla Have A Legal Settlement Conference Set For October – No, It Isn't Related To Twitter

Tesla, Inc. TSLA might be looking to end the stalemate around litigation that stemmed from CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 “going private” tweet.

Tesla is likely to participate in a settlement conference to negotiate the closing of the securities fraud case brought by aggrieved investors, Bloomberg reported, citing court filings late Friday. The settlement conference is scheduled to be held on October 3 through Zoom. The plaintiffs and defendants were asked to exchange “confidential settlement letters and statements” 10 days before the conference, the report said.

For the unversed, Musk tweeted in August 2018 that he is considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and that funding has been secured.

Later, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk, alleging that his tweet caused Tesla’s stock to gyrate in the immediate aftermath of the tweet and caused significant market disruption.

Read this Benzinga story on analyst’s take on Tesla’s recent quarterly results

Subsequently, Tesla shareholders sued Musk in federal court, arguing Musk’s “indisputably false” 2018 tweet and his follow-up posts on Twitter cost them billions of dollars due to wild swings in shares.

Musk has maintained that he was "entirely truthful" and that he was in talks with Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund to finance the taking-private transaction.

In May this year, the federal court ruled against Musk, saying there wasn’t any concrete agreement regarding the financing.

Tesla stock closed Friday’s session up 0.20% at $816.73, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Photo: Created with an image from Steve Jurvetson on Flickr