The tweet, which resulted in a $57m ($40 million) settlement with securities regulators, claimed he had lined up the financing to take Tesla private in a deal that never came close to happening.
Musk, who said he “had trouble sleeping last night and unfortunately I am not at my best,” testified that it was important for jurors to know that he “felt that funding was secured” due to his ownership of “SpaceX stock alone.”
“Just as I sold stock in Tesla to buy Twitter. … I didn’t want to sell Tesla stock but I did sell Tesla stock,” he said of the stock sale to make up for the lack of funding from other sources for his $44 billion deal to take Twitter private.
“My SpaceX shares alone would have meant that funding was secured,” Musk said.