Elon Musk’s verbal incontinence is nothing new. We’ve had plenty of reminders of this in recent months due to the soap opera that the billionaire’s purchase of Twitter has become, and since he now owns the social network, the level hasn’t dropped, to be honest. But just because it’s one of the hot topics of conversation lately doesn’t mean it’s something new, in fact, the habit has been around for quite some time.

There are many people who still clearly remember the tweet published by Musk in August 2018, specifically on Tuesday 7. In the mentioned message, we could read: “I am considering taking over Tesla at $420. Funding Secured.”, meaning that it was considering delisting Tesla (as it did with the Twitter acquisition), paying $420 per share, and that it was also guaranteed the necessary funds to carry out said operation.

After this report, many more arrived, partly as responses to social media users, in which Elon Musk supported the theory as a real possibility, giving it credibility with the markets and investors and therefore reacting accordingly. And the consequences were, as you can imagine, an impressive volume. In other words, this statement fundamentally affected the shareholders and investors of the company. And the problem is that it wasn’t true.

Elon Musk thus asserted his position to manipulate the market, which clearly could not come for free. The SEC has already conducted an investigation in this regard, as a result of which Elon Musk had to temporarily leave his role as CEO of Tesla. However, this was only an appetizer, because this week the trial begins due to the lawsuit of several investors who believe that their interests were seriously harmed by the message, which, by the way, Musk still maintains on his Twitter account, as you can see just about this paragraph.

The outlook isn’t good for the billionaire, ArsTechnica consulted with various lawyers and the criterion is common: Elon Musk will lose the trial. For all of them, the question is not whether they will be declared innocent or guilty, no, what follows is the question of how much they will have to pay for manipulating the market with this inappropriate news, with the addition that Tesla’s official account has never refuted what Musk said. On the contrary, it served as a confirmation that gave him credibility.

And everything indicates that this is another step that will not be cheap even for Elon Musk. The plaintiffs testified about the effects of Musk’s messages on their investments and subsequently demanded at least $66.67 per share from the millionaire and the company. Musk defends himself by arguing that not all of the swings in Tesla’s stock price over the period under review were caused by his tweets. Another court has already ruled that their information was misleading, so now it remains to be seen how much of these losses must be borne by the millionaire’s and company’s already somewhat battered finances.