A federal judge in California dismissed a securities fraud and defamation lawsuit filed by a Tesla investor against Tesla Inc., the company’s CEO Elon Musk, and a Musk supporter on May 19.
Judge James Donato threw out the lawsuit by the investor, Aaron Greenspan, a legal document website owner, after noting that the lawsuit had no legally plausible claims.
Greenspan had alleged that Omar Qazi, a Musk fan, made a series of defamatory tweets that made baseless accusations against him, and asserted that the tweets were part of a conspiracy campaign of 80,000 coordinated tweets that praised Tesla and attacked its critics.
Qazi had previously called Greenspan’s allegations “absurd,” and Tesla’s attorneys have disputed Greenspan’s allegations as baseless conspiracy theories.
Donato had previously dismissed the case, which was originally filed in 2020, back in June, but he gave Greenspan the opportunity to file another complaint on federal legal issues.
The judge ruled that claims such as defamation made under California law would be taken up later as warranted.
Donato, in his order to dismiss, found that Greenspan failed to provide facts to support his allegations, or that Qazi acted as an agent of Tesla or Musk.
Musk has lately been embroiled in controversy since his planned acquisition of Twitter, regarding statements criticizing the Biden administration and a claim of sexual harassment.
The Tesla CEO on Thursday denied a report by Business Insider that he sexually harassed a flight attendant on a private jet in 2016, calling her a liar.
“But I have a challenge to this liar who claims their friend saw me ‘exposed’—describe just one thing, anything at all (scars, tattoos, …) that isn’t known by the public. She won’t be able to do so, because it never happened,” Musk wrote in a tweet.
Musk responded by calling the issue regarding the ESG ratings a “scam,” and questioned the reason behind why the index could drop his environmentally-friendly electric car company while promoting oil and gas producers.
“Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500, while Tesla didn’t make the list! ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors,” he wrote on Twitter.
Tesla shares fell almost 9 percent at the end of the week, with $66 billion in stock market losses, putting its shares at their lowest level since last August.
After some analysts alerted investors about “distraction risks” for Tesla regarding the Twitter deal, Musk assured shareholders and supporters on May 19 that his car company was constantly on his mind.
Some Tesla and SpaceX employees complained that they were “a little bit rattled and angry,” as technology company employees tend to be very liberal.
This is an excerpt from The Epoch Times.
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