A lawyer for Elon Musk has urged U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to reexamine a recent jury decision that held Musk liable for defrauding investors in connection with his purchase of Twitter, now called X. In a letter filed on Thursday in San Francisco federal court, Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro said the verdict should be reviewed because jurors used their verdict to "send a message," rather than render a sober determination.
Spiro highlighted a striking visual detail on the verdict form: the dollar amount "$4.20" was written in bright blue ink while the other entries were in black. He characterized the entry as a deliberate "numerical joke," noting the cultural association of 420 with marijuana and Musk’s own repeated public use of the number.
The letter contends that the jury’s choice to include that blue-marked number amounted to mocking the defendant and undercuts the impartiality of the verdict. Spiro wrote that the "inescapable conclusion from the face of the verdict form is that the jury felt it appropriate to use its verdict to send a message to Mr. Musk, instead of properly discharging its solemn duty to render a just verdict."
Jurors found Musk liable for two statements he made shortly after announcing his intention to buy Twitter, in which he questioned whether the platform was overrun by fake and spam accounts. Investors argue those statements were aimed at forcing Twitter to renegotiate the deal or enabling Musk to abandon the transaction, and that the comments depressed Twitter’s stock price, causing losses for shareholders who sold at lower prices.
The March 20 verdict, which Spiro says contains other alleged trial errors, could expose Musk to damages that may reach $2.5 billion. The buyout valued Twitter at $54.20 per share as part of Musk’s roughly $44 billion acquisition, which he completed in October 2022.
Spiro emphasized that the appearance of the blue "$4.20" figure was "no doubt intentional," and urged Judge Breyer to conduct "further inquiry" into the verdict in light of the asserted irregularities and other concerns raised in the letter.
Lawyers representing the Twitter investors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The filing also notes that Musk has previously used the number 420 in connection with his business activities. The letter cites earlier instances such as a 2020 reduction in the price of Tesla’s Model S by 4% to $69,420, and a 2018 tweet in which he stated he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private at $420 per share; that tweet prompted a civil fraud lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that Musk later settled.
Contextual note - The allegations at the heart of the investors’ claims focus on whether Musk’s post-announcement statements were intended to influence the terms of the deal or to justify withdrawal, and whether those statements caused measurable harm to shareholders who sold their shares at lower prices following the comments.