WILMINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th November, 2022) Sued for $56 billion "wrongfully" awarded Tesla package deal in 2018, Elon Musk kept his excellent sense of humor when answering the plaintiff's lawyer on the meaning of his recent tweets.
Musk was questioned about his current sleeping time in Twitter, about him promoting the BurntHair product - also on Twitter, and about his tweets on the Ukraine peace plan.
Musk arrived to the Delaware Court of Chancery in Wilmington via the back entrance and took the stand at 9:15 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) on Wednesday.
The plaintiff's attorney Gregory Valarro, however, devoted ample timeframe to asking the 51-year-old business tycoon about his playful Twitter activities. The lawyer was trying to show that Musk did not deserve $56 billion-huge Tesla pay, alleging the board failed to meet its legal duty to act in the best interest of Tesla shareholders.
The suit against Musk calls him a "part-time CEO" as he runs other companies and was unjustly awarded the sum.
"You announced the first million Dollars of burnt hair being sold, you tweeted, requesting that your followers would: 'buy my perfume so that I can buy Twitter,' correct?" Valarro asked Musk.
"Yes, that's a joke, you know," Musk replied. The auditorium started laughing - in a good way. The "enemy's lawyer," however, also found it slightly entertaining, which one could hear in his voice while he noted: "I get it."
In October, Elon Musk's surprising appeal to his followers to buy his recently-launched perfume brand "Burnt Hair" to fund his acquisition of Twitter set the internet ablaze.
Valarro, untroubled with the ranging scale of the topics, moved from from hair products to peace plan on Ukraine.
"In addition to... perfume, you've asked your Twitter followers to vote on some proposals you have, a peace plan for Ukraine, correct?"
In mid-October, the billionaire announced a plan, suggesting the neutral status of Ukraine and UN-supervised referendums in Donbas, the Kherson region, and the Zaporizhzhia region, and does not dispute the status of Crimea as part of Russia.
Valarro went on - seeking to show in the Wilmington courtroom that Musk has been spending more time on Twitter than he is on Tesla. The lawyer showed a Twitter photo to the whole auditorium, in which the Twitter owner suggested his wife is Tesla, but Twitter is the new desired mistress.
Musk replied that his extra time devoted to the social platform is only an initial process to "reorganize the company." He will then find somebody else to run the social platform.
The attorney wanted to dig further into the "lack of focus on Tesla topic" - he asked Musk if he brought around 50 Tesla engineers to fix Twitter. Musk, rejecting the claim that he has been using the "Tesla assets," said that this was on a "voluntary, after-hours and short-term basis."
The argument showcased on Twitter ended with the attorney stating that according to the billionaire's tweet, he was still going to sleep at Twitter for a little while. Musk rebuffed that he expects "fundamental restructuring" of the company to be done within this week.
Musk is famous for sleeping under his Tesla desk - when he started the company.
Musk finalized the acquisition of Twitter on 28 October, which cost him $44 billion.
After that, Musk effected significant policy changes and the company's day-to-day operations. The entrepreneur fired previous chief executive Parag Agrawal, and thousands of regular Twitter employees, abolished working from home and introduced a new verification system, according to which users can now receive a verification mark for $7.99 a month. The new system has been paused but a new one will be reintroduced on November 29.
Musk's appearance in Delaware courthouse was for the second time in 16 months since his last visit in July 2021.
It is yet to see the result of this legal case. Musk left the courtroom around noon - before the official lunch break at 1:30 p.m. His car parked next to a tent - so journalists could not see him. One can only think that he is returning to San Francisco to continue sleeping in his Twitter Headquarters - hopefully, not under the table.
