International

Elon Musk takes stand in Tesla tweet fraud trial

Photo: Reuters

January 23 | By AFP | Glenn Chapman |

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stand in a California fraud trial on Friday, accused of lying in tweets about taking the auto company private, punishing investors.

Musk was called to testify by lawyers for angry investors who accuse him of costing them millions of dollars in 2018 with untrue tweets about having funding secured to buy out shareholders at $420 a share.

The multi-billionaire’s tweets sent the Tesla share price on a rollercoaster ride and Musk was sued by shareholders who say the tycoon acted recklessly in an effort to squeeze investors who had bet against the company.

Musk, who bought Twitter itself in October, downplayed the power of his tweets noting under questioning that he once posted that he thought Tesla share price was too high, and “it went higher, which is counter-intuitive.”

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“What I’m trying to say is that the causal relationship is clearly not there simply because of a tweet,” Musk said in a testimony that lasted only thirty minutes and was to be continued on Monday.

The hearing on Friday began with Harvard law and business professor Guhan Subramanian, who was called as an expert witness by the plaintiffs.

He called Musk’s tweeted proposal to take Tesla private as “illusory” and “just wrong” in how it deviated wildly from the way such mega-deals usually take place.

“All I can say is this is just wrong; as a matter of deal process… this isn’t correct,” Subramanian said while being questioned by a defense lawyer about Musk’s tweets.

‘Reckless’ words

Testimonies in the trial opened Wednesday with a lawyer for the upset investors telling jurors Musk lied about having funding in place.

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Nicholas Porritt, who represents lead plaintiff Glen Littleton and other Tesla investors, said the tweets cost “regular people” to lose “millions and millions of dollars.”

Called as the first witness, 71-year-old Littleton told jurors he was heavily invested in Tesla in 2018 in a way that banked on the share price climbing to $500 or more.

Littleton testified that he was “pretty shocked” by Musk’s tweet about taking the company private at $420 a share because it threatened almost all the money he had invested in Tesla.

“It was going to pretty much wipe me out,” Littleton said.

Littleton told jurors he scrambled to save what he could of his investments, getting out of most of his positions at a huge loss.

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Musk is expected to continue testifying at trial on Monday, when his lawyers will get a chance to refute the accusation that he was being deceitful.

The case revolves around a pair of tweets in which Musk said “funding secured” for a project to buy out the publicly traded electric automaker, then in a second tweet added that “investor support is confirmed.”

Porritt told jurors that Musk had selected the $420 share price in the tweet “as a joke” and that the funding to take Tesla private was never locked in, nor credibly pursued.

In his own opening remarks, Musk attorney Alex Spiro said that even though the tweets may have been a “reckless choice of words”, they were “not fraud, not even close.”

The fraud trial is expected to last three weeks.

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International

Peruvian presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra dies in campaign road accident

Presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra, representing the Partido de los Trabajadores y Emprendedores (PTE) in Peru, died in a traffic accident while traveling to a campaign event, local authorities confirmed Sunday.

Becerra, who also served as president of the centrist political party, ranked among the lowest in opinion polls in a crowded field of more than 30 candidates competing in the presidential election scheduled for April 12.

Recent surveys place Rafael López Aliaga at the top of voter preferences.

The accident occurred near the town of Ayacucho, in southern Peru, when the vehicle carrying the candidate overturned for reasons that remain under investigation.

“The candidate Becerra has died,” Balvin Huamani, mayor of the district of Pilpichaca, told RPP radio.

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According to Huamani, he personally transported the 61-year-old candidate to a local health center, where doctors confirmed his death.

The Jurado Nacional de Elecciones (JNE) expressed condolences over Becerra’s passing and wished a speedy recovery to the three people who were traveling with him and were injured in the crash.

International

Noboa intensifies anti-cartel crackdown as violence persists in Ecuador

A close ally of Washington, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has pursued a hardline security strategy against cocaine cartels for more than two years, yet homicide, disappearance and extortion rates remain high across the country.

Between Sunday night and the morning of March 31, Ecuador’s armed forces will launch a “very strong offensive” with “advisory support” from the United States, Interior Minister John Reimberg announced Tuesday.

The government has kept details of the operation confidential and has not confirmed whether U.S. troops will be deployed on Ecuadorian soil, as has occurred at times during Noboa’s administration.

As part of the security measures, residents in the coastal provinces of Guayas, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, and El Oro will be subject to a nightly curfew from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time for the next two weeks.

“We are in a war,” Reimberg said, urging citizens to remain indoors. “Do not take risks. Stay home and allow the security forces and our allies to do the work that must be done.”

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Although Ecuador does not produce cocaine, it has become a major departure point for drugs heading to the United States. Meanwhile, the violence associated with trafficking has increasingly affected the local population.

Bordering the world’s largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has gone from being considered a relatively peaceful country to recording one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America—52 killings per 100,000 inhabitants—according to the **Observatory of Organized Crime.

International

Peruvian presidential candidate proposes death penalty amid crime surge

Peru is facing an unprecedented surge in crime ahead of its presidential election scheduled for April 12, with violence fueled by extortion networks and a wave of contract killings linked to organized crime.

Police data show that 2,200 homicides tied to organized crime were recorded in 2025, while extortion complaints increased by 19%, underscoring the growing security crisis in the South American nation.

Amid this backdrop, presidential candidate Álvarez has proposed reinstating the death penalty if elected, arguing that extreme measures are needed to curb the violence.

To implement the proposal, Álvarez said Peru would withdraw from the American Convention on Human Rights—also known as the Pact of San José—which the country signed in 1978. The agreement prevents member states that have abolished capital punishment from reinstating it.

Currently, Peruvian law only allows the death penalty in cases of treason during wartime.

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“We have to leave the Pact of San José and apply the death penalty in Peru because those miserable criminals don’t deserve to live,” Álvarez told AFP during a campaign stop at a market in Callao, the port city neighboring Lima.

“An iron fist against those criminals,” he added, proposing to declare hitmen as military targets.

During the campaign event, Álvarez walked through stalls selling vegetables, groceries, and fish, greeting vendors while musicians played cumbia music nearby.

The 62-year-old candidate, who spent more than four decades working in television as a comedian, is a newcomer to politics and is running for president under the País para Todos party.

Polls place him fifth in voter preference with nearly 4% support in a fragmented race featuring 36 candidates.