Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO, is being tried in a shareholder trial in San Francisco for violating federal securities laws by 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 by Twitter shareholders who sold their stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, a few weeks before Musk's purchase of Twitter was finalized. It alleges that Musk made public statements that were calculated to drive down the price of Twitter stock. The plaintiff's lawyer, Aaron P. Arnzen, began questioning Musk about his tweets, or lack of tweets, about his decision to buy Twitter and his purchases of stock prior to deciding to take the company private. In July 2022, Musk announced that he would abandon his offer to purchase Twitter after the company failed to provide enough information about the number of fake or spam accounts, despite the issue being disclosed to the public.