A jury found Elon Musk not liable for losses of investors due to a series of tweets saying he had “secured” funding to take the electric car maker private. They deliberated for less than two hours.
Musk personally testified at the trial and noted that he was relying on a handshake agreement in 2018 with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
The verdict is a buzz kill for the alliance of media, political, and business interests against Musk. Critics of his effort to restore free speech protections on Twitter have pressured advertisers while celebrities have publicly renounced their own Teslas. The very thought of allowing opposing views on issues from Covid to climate change to elections appears intolerable for many in politics and the media.
The public itself, however, has consistently supported the effort to restore the protections and Twitter has experienced a sharp increase in users. That success, however, has only led figures like Hillary Clinton to call on foreign governments to censor fellow citizens.
This unhinged campaign against Musk is being led by the same anti-free speech figures that long supported censorship. That is precisely why Musk may be the only person who could have fought this fight. While these figures and companies have a long history of forcing others into compliance, Musk has proven the immovable object in the face of this seemingly irresistible force.