Elon Musk tells court Google had ‘standing interest’ in buying Tesla, encouraging him to take it private with Saudis

Elon Musk tells court Google had ‘standing interest’ in buying Tesla, encouraging him to take it private with Saudis

Elon Musk said Google had a "standing interest in buying Tesla" in testimony in the securities fraud trial.

The Tesla CEO said this helped encourage him to try to secure funds to take the EV maker private.

According to a 2015 book, Musk and former Google CEO Larry Page had an $11 billion deal in place for Tesla.

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk told a court Tuesday that Google had a "standing interest" in buying the electric-vehicle maker, which encouraged him to try taking the company private with Saudi funds.

The billionaire pointed to the interest from Google's parent Alphabet laid down in an earlier deposition, Marketwatch reported, as he defended his 2018 "funding secured" tweet in an ongoing civil trial.

Musk told his lawyer Alex Spiro in a cross-examination that this factored into his decision to try and take Tesla private.

The San Francisco trial is the result of a class-action shareholder lawsuit that alleges Musk committed securities fraud with the tweet. The investors have accused Musk of illegally manipulating Tesla's stock price by saying he had funding in place to take the