A judge dismissed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk that claimed he cheated Twitter shareholders several times last year in the course of buying the social media company for $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,61,687 crore).
In a decision on Monday, US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said plaintiff William Heresniak lacked standing to sue because he challenged “wrongs associated with” Musk’s buyout, not the fairness of the buyout itself.
Breyer said Heresniak did not show harm from Musk’s belated disclosure of a 9.2 percent Twitter stake, which the suit said let him buy more shares at lower prices before the buyout was announced, or from the closing’s taking place 1 1/2 months later than planned.
The judge also found no proof that Musk helped two friends then on Twitter’s board, co-founder Jack Dorsey and Silver Lake private equity firm managing partner Egon Durban, breach their fiduciary duties by favoring their own and Musk’s interests.
Breyer said letting Dorsey roll over his approximately $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,210 crore) of Twitter shares into an equity stake in the new company merely reduced how much Musk had to pay at closing, and did not “improperly divert” money from other shareholders.
Heresniak’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside of business hours.
Musk also runs the electric car company Tesla and is the world’s second-richest person, according to Forbes magazine.
Lawyers for Musk, two of his holding companies, and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a March 3 court filing, they called Heresniak’s claims “a disjointed laundry list of – often irrelevant – grievances against Elon Musk.”
Heresniak sued on May 25, 2022, one month after Twitter accepted Musk’s $54.20 (roughly Rs. 4,488) per share buyout offer. The transaction closed on October 27.
Twitter has since struggled to maintain ad revenue, with some advertisers expressing concern that loosened content rules could leave their ads associated with hate speech or other “wrong messages.”
On May 12, Musk named former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s new chief executive.
The case is Heresniak v Musk et al, US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 22-03074.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
Samsung Galaxy A34 5G was recently launched by the company in India alongside the more expensive Galaxy A54 5G smartphone. How does this phone fare against the Nothing Phone 1 and the iQoo Neo 7? We discuss this and more on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.
For all the latest Technology News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
Denial of responsibility! NewsBit.us is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
