Tweets that Elon Musk posted in 2018 announcing that he would have secured funding to take Tesla out of the stock market were found to be "false and misleading" by a U.S. federal judge, according to shareholder court documents, which are cited by the Reuters this Sunday.

According to the aforementioned agency and also the newspaper Económico, the court found that not only were the tweets "false and misleading", but also that Elon Musk made the statements in question recklessly and with knowledge of their falsity.

At issue are tweets that were published in August 2018, in which the Tesla leader announced that he was considering taking that automaker private, at $420 per share. "The capital to do is secured," Musk wrote. In reaction, Tesla shares rose more than 13%.

Faced with this situation, the US regulator sued Musk for fraud, and the businessman and the Fed later reached a settlement, which included the payment of fines of $40 million and the millionaire's removal from the position of chairman of the board.

In parallel, a lawsuit is underway in the federal court in San Francisco, which opposes Elon Musk to shareholders, who lost billions of dollars after these tweets. It is the documents from that lawsuit that are cited this Sunday by Reuters. The trial is scheduled for the end of May.