Elon Musk's tweeting style seizes spotlight in Tesla trial

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk's impulsive and sometimes inflammatory usage of Twitter took center stage Wednesday in a trial focused on whether he misled investors with his 2018 tweets indicating he had lined up financing to take the electric automaker private, a proposal that rapidly unraveled.

The spotlight on Musk's tweeting habits came a day after the 51-year-old billionaire completed three days of defiant testimony during which he told the nine-member jury why he believed he could have pulled off a Tesla buyout that could have cost anywhere from $30 billion to more than $70 billion at the time.

Musk, who now owns the Twitter service that's central to the trial about his management of Tesla, raised the prospect of a buyout in an Aug. 7, 2018 tweet stating he had the “funding secured ” for the deal. Musk followed up a few hours later with another tweet suggesting a deal was imminent.

After it became apparent that the money wasn’t in place to take Tesla private, Musk and the company reached a $40 million settlement with securities regulators who alleged his tweets were improper.

The furor that erupted over Musk's August 2018 weeks came just weeks after Tesla investors had urged him to clamp down on his usage of Twitter, fearing that the comments he was posting were damaging the automaker's brand, as well as the company's stock price.

“If something really upsets you, go for a walk around the factory," Ron Baron, a major Tesla shareholder, told Musk in a July 15, 2018 email that was displayed as evidence during Wednesday's trial. “Get an ice cream cone. Just don’t use Twitter.”

Baron, who Musk praised as a savvy investor during his testimony, wrote the cautionary email after Musk referred to a British cave explorer as a “pedo guy" in a tweet that was...