Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and SpaceX, is being sued by Twitter investors for delaying the disclosure of his stake in the company..The lawsuit comes as he mounts a US$44-billion takeover bid for Twitter..The investors claimed Musk saved himself $156 million by failing to disclose he had purchased more than 5% of Twitter by 14 March..Following the offer, Musk continued to buy stock. In early April, he finally disclosed he owned 9.2% of the platform..The information is provided in the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in San Francisco federal court..“By delaying his disclosure of his stake in Twitter, Musk engaged in market manipulation and bought Twitter stock at an artificially low price,” said the investors, led by Virginia resident William Heresniak..Musk nor his lawyer immediately responded to media requests for comment. Twitter also declined to comment..The recent drop in Tesla’s stock has put Musk’s ability to finance his acquisition of Twitter in “major peril” the investors said because he has pledged his shares as loan collateral he needs to buy the company..Tesla’s shares were trading around $760 late Monday morning, down from above $1,000 in early April..The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month the timing of Musk’s disclosure of his stake had already triggered an investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission..On Wednesday, Musk pledged an additional $6.25 billion in equity financing for his bid for Twitter. It signals his intention to close the deal despite demanding that the Twitter board present evidence that spam bots account for less than 5% of its user accounts.
