A lawyer representing investors told a court that Elon Musk “lied” to claim he had “secured” financing to take Tesla private.

In 2018, , the company’s chief executive stated that he had “secured funding” to take the electric carmaker private. Later that investor backing was “confirmed”, which caused shares to plummet and then to soar .

Musk reversed course on the plans less than three weeks later.

Glen Littleton, a Tesla investor, is suing shareholders for damages. He claims that tweets by Musk have cost them “millions”.

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Musk’s lawyer argued that Musk had merely tweeted the wrong words when he did so.

Opening statements were given by Nicholas Porritt, the lead attorney representing the investors. He stated to a San Francisco jury that millions of dollars had been lost after [Musk]’s lies were exposed.

However, Musk’s representative Alex Spiro said that Musk was serious about taking the company private, but ended up facing shareholder opposition.

He told jurors, “You will soon learn that this wasn’t fraud, not even close.”

However, the lawyer told the jury that Musk’s tweet contained “technical errors”.

He told the court that he had used the wrong words because he was in a hurry.

Littleton testified before the court that he had made investments in Tesla in 2015.

After seeing Musk’s tweet about “funding secured”, he said he had scrambled for Tesla options positions that were no longer profitable after the tweet.

A nine-member jury will decide if Musk’s tweets artificially inflate Tesla’s share prices by playing up the status and funding for the deal. If so, how much.

The trial will resume Friday with an expert witness. Musk could also be called to testify.

Edward Chen, the judge, denied Musk’s request to move the case to Texas last week. Musk expressed concern that Californian jurors might be biased against him.

He mentioned negative media coverage about the tens of thousands of jobs he had cut at Twitter . Twitter is located in San Francisco, after he took over the social media platform last Oct.

The jury will decide whether Musk’s tweets had an impact on investors and whether Musk acted in good faith.

Judge Chen already ruled that statements made by the SpaceX owner were false, but defendants will claim that he had good reasons to believe that funding was available for Tesla’s private sale.