Proactive Investors - Elon Musk’s infamous “funding secured” tweet in 2018 will cost the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) founder and his company plenty – about $12,397 each for 3,350 claimants in a lawsuit, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Wednesday.
The lawsuit accused Musk of defrauding investors over a tweet in which he claimed he was ready to take Tesla private at $420 a share.
Only shareholders who submitted a completed claim form by September 2022 to an administrator, Rust Consulting, will get the payment, which amounts to 51.7% of their calculated recognized loss.
The SEC, which pursued Musk in 2018 over the tweet, has estimated losses to investors of $80 million, according to Fortune and Bloomberg.
The judge, who the SEC has asked to give final approval, said he would sign off on the payout plan on September 1, provided neither Tesla nor Musk present any objections, Fortune reported.
Musk and Tesla agreed to civil penalties of $40 million plus interest, and a so-called “Fair Fund” was set up in an interest-bearing account at the US Treasury’s Bureau of Fiscal Services.
Since Musk’s infamous tweet on August 7, 2018, Tesla shares have soared 886% and have gained 113% year to date as of Thursday’s closing price.