2026年3月4日 / 美国东部时间下午6:44 / 美联社
埃隆·马斯克周三在旧金山的一场股东诉讼中出庭作证，他被指控在2022年以440亿美元收购该社交媒体平台之前，故意发表虚假和误导性陈述导致Twitter股价下跌。
这起诉讼于2022年10月在美国加利福尼亚北区联邦地区法院提起，代表2022年5月13日至10月4日之间出售Twitter股票的股东，即马斯克完成收购前几周。诉讼称，马斯克通过发表”精心策划以压低Twitter股价”的虚假公开声明，违反了联邦证券法。
这位亿万富翁特斯拉首席执行官在2022年4月达成协议收购Twitter并将其私有化。然而，5月13日，他宣布计划”暂时搁置”，称需要查明平台上垃圾邮件和虚假账户的数量。诉讼称，这导致Twitter股价暴跌。几天后，他在推文中表示交易”无法继续”，并声称近20%的Twitter账户是”虚假的”。
法庭素描显示埃隆·马斯克周三在旧金山的股东审判中出庭作证。Vicki Behringer
原告律师Aaron P. Arnzen开始询问马斯克关于他关于收购Twitter的决定以及决定将公司私有化前购买Twitter股票的推文（或缺乏推文）的问题。
马斯克身着黑色西装领带，表示他认为2022年初开始大量收购Twitter股票时”这并不构成重大信息”，没有在推文中披露，也没有向美国证券交易委员会（SEC）披露。他说自己在”许多公司”购买过股票，但没有公布过。
一旦他（完成交易），Twitter股价在一天内飙升27%。
“这听起来很高，”马斯克说。
诉讼称，马斯克5月13日的推文——”在确认垃圾邮件/虚假账户确实占用户不到5%的情况下，Twitter交易暂时搁置”——是”虚假的，因为事实上收购并没有’暂时搁置’”。诉讼称，这是因为Twitter不同意搁置交易，双方签署的合并协议中没有允许马斯克搁置交易的条款。
Arnzen详细询问了马斯克关于这条推文的问题，问他是否认为这会对Twitter股价产生”重大影响”。马斯克表示，他当时明确表示仍致力于该交易，称交易暂时搁置”就像说你开会要迟到了（并不）意味着你不会参加会议”。
5月13日，Twitter股价下跌近10%。
Arnzen反复问马斯克是否有考虑这条推文会如何影响股市。马斯克反复回答：”我只是在表达自己的想法。”
在接下来的几周里，马斯克继续试图拖延或退出交易，诉讼称他通过对Twitter业务发表虚假和贬低性陈述来达到目的，导致这家旧金山公司的股价大幅下跌。
2022年7月，马斯克重申了对机器人账户问题的看法，并表示如果该公司未能提供足够关于虚假账户数量的信息，他将放弃收购Twitter的提议。尽管诉讼指出，马斯克对他的”要么接受要么放弃”收购Twitter的提议放弃了尽职调查权，这意味着他放弃了查看公司非公开财务数据的权利。
周四，马斯克被反复问及在放弃尽职调查之前，他是否询问过Twitter确定虚假或垃圾邮件账户数量的方法，该公司披露约为5%。马斯克称他没有询问，但假设如果Twitter在SEC文件中披露的内容，”那应该是准确的”。
“后来发现他们误报了机器人账户数量，”他说。”他们撒谎了。”
7月8日，当马斯克在推文中表示因虚假账户问题放弃交易时，股价收于36.81美元，较马斯克提出的每股54.20美元的收购价低32%。
诉讼称：”为了试图重新谈判价格或推迟合并，马斯克发表了重大虚假和误导性陈述和遗漏，并进行了欺骗市场的计划，所有这些都违反了法律。”
Twitter上机器人和虚假账户的问题并非新问题。该公司2021年曾支付8.095亿美元解决其被指控夸大增长率和月活跃用户数量的问题。多年来，Twitter也向SEC披露了其机器人账户估算数据，同时也提醒称其估算可能偏低。
Twitter起诉马斯克要求他完成交易，马斯克反诉。10月4日，马斯克提出以440亿美元按原提议完成收购，Twitter接受。交易于当月晚些时候完成。在随后的几个月里，马斯克削减了公司员工，裁撤了信任与安全团队，并撤销了内容审核政策。2023年7月，他将Twitter更名为X。
这不是马斯克第一次因社交媒体帖子误导投资者而被拖入法庭。三年前，马斯克在旧金山联邦法院就他计划以每股420美元收购特斯拉（他仍作为上市公司运营）的提议作证约8小时，该2018年交易从未实现。一个由9人组成的陪审团在该案中认定马斯克无罪。
Elon Musk testifies in Twitter shareholder trial alleging he purposefully drove down stock before his purchase
March 4, 2026 / 6:44 PM EST / AP
Elon Musk took the stand in a shareholder trial on Wednesday in San Francisco, where he’s accused of making false and misleading statements that drove down Twitter’s stock price before he bought the social media platform for $44 billion in 2022.
The lawsuit was filed in October 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of Twitter shareholders who sold the stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, a few weeks beforeMusk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized. It claims Musk violated federal securities laws by making false, public statements that “were carefully calculated to drive down the price of Twitter stock.”
The billionaire Tesla CEO reached a deal to buy Twitter and take it private in April 2022. On May 13, however, he declared his plan “temporarily on hold” and said he needs to pinpoint the number of spam and fake accounts on the platform. Twitter’s stock tumbled as a result. A few days later, he tweeted that the deal “cannot go forward” and claimed that almost 20% of Twitter accounts were “fake,” according to the lawsuit.
Court sketch shows Elon Musk on the stand in a shareholder trial Wednesday in San Francisco. Vicki Behringer
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Aaron P. Arnzen, began with questioning Musk about his tweets — or lack of tweets — about his decision to buy Twitter and his purchases of Twitter stock prior to deciding to take the company private.
Wearing a black suit and tie, Musk said he didn’t think it was “material” when, in early 2022, he began amassing Twitter stock and did not tweet about it or disclose to the Securities and Exchange Commission. He said he’s bought stock in “many companies” and did not post about it.
Once he did, Twitter’s stock jumped 27% in one day.
“That sounds high,” Musk said.
Musk’s May 13 tweet — “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users” — was “false because the buyout was not, in fact, ‘temporarily on hold,’” the lawsuit says. That’s because Twitter did not agree to put the deal on hold, and there was nothing in the merger agreement the two parties signed that allowed Musk to put it on hold, according to the lawsuit.
Arnzen questioned Musk about the tweet at length, asking if he thought whether it would have a “material impact” on Twitter’s stock. Musk said he made it explicit at the time that he was committed to the deal and that saying the deal was temporarily on hold was “like saying you’re going to be late for a meeting. (It doesn’t) mean you are not going to be at the meeting.”
Elon Musk arrives at federal court on March 4, 2026, in San Francisco, California. Josh Edelson / Getty Images
Twitter’s stock fell nearly 10% on May 13.
Arnzen repeatedly asked Musk if he stopped to think about how the tweet would affect the stock market. Musk answered, repeatedly, “I was simply speaking my mind.”
In the following weeks, Musk continued to try to delay or get out of the deal, which the lawsuit claims he did in the form of false, disparaging statements about Twitter’s business that drove the San Francisco company’s stock down sharply.
In July 2022, Musk doubled down on the bots issue and said he would abandon his offer to buy Twitter after the company failed to provide enough information about the number of fake accounts. That’s even though the lawsuit notes that Musk waived due diligence for his “take it or leave it” offer to buy Twitter. That means he waived his right to look at the company’s nonpublic finances.
Musk was repeatedly asked Thursday if, before waiving due diligence, he asked about Twitter’s methodology for determining the number of fake or spam accounts, which the company disclosed to be about 5%. Musk said he did not, but that he assumed if Twitter put something in an SEC filing, “it would be accurate.”
“It subsequently turned out they misrepresented the number of bots,” he said. “They lied.”
The stock closed at $36.81 on July 8, when Musk tweeted he was abandoning the deal over the fake accounts issue. That’s 32% below Musk’s offer price of $54.20 per share.
“To try to renegotiate the price or delay the merger, Musk made materially false and misleading statements and omissions, and engaged in a scheme to deceive the market, all in violation of the law,” the lawsuit says.
The problem of bots and fake accounts on Twitter wasn’t new. The company had paid $809.5 million in 2021 to settle claims it was overstating its growth rate and monthly user figures. Twitter also disclosed its bot estimates to the SEC for years, while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.
Twitter sued Musk to force him to complete the deal, and Musk countersued. On Oct. 4, Musk offered to go through with his original proposal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, which Twitter accepted. The deal closed later that month. In the ensuing months, Musk slashed the company’s workforce, gutted its trust and safety team and rolled back content moderation policies. In July 2023, he renamed Twitter as X.
This isn’t the first time that Musk has been dragged into court to defend himself against allegations of duping investors with his social media posts. Three years ago, Musk spent about eight hours testifying in a San Francisco federal trial about his plans to buy Tesla — the electric automaker that he still runs as publicly traded company — for $420 per share in a proposed 2018 deal that never materialized. A nine-member jury absolved Musk of wrongdoing in that case.