The head of the Saudi Investment Fund, Yasser Al-Rumayyan, was summoned in the case of Musk’s tweet about “secured financing”

New York, USA - Elon Musk's legal team has summoned the head of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Yasser Al-Rumayyan, as part of litigation over the Tesla CEO's 2018 tweet and his statement that he was considering taking the car company private and that he had received funding to do so. Musk had long confirmed that he was considering taking Tesla private at the time he posted the tweet, and said his comment on “secured financing” was based on conversations with Saudi Arabia’s massive sovereign wealth fund, which he said urged him to take the company private and offered to increase its investments in Tesla. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund invests in entities important to economic growth and says it has $620 billion in assets under management as of early 2022.

Musk's team is now seeking to have Yasser Al-Rumayyan, head of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, testify as part of the litigation, according to a subpoena filed in December and unsealed on Tuesday. Musk's team also subpoenaed three other members of the Saudi Public Investment Fund. The Saudi Public Investment Fund declined to comment to Ofoq News regarding the subpoenas.

Tesla shareholders had filed a lawsuit against Musk in 2018, alleging that he did not have “secured financing” to take the company private at $420 per share, as he said in a tweet that year, which caused sharp fluctuations in Tesla shares that investors claimed hurt their portfolios. Musk eventually settled with the then-U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over the tweets, resigned as Tesla chairman and agreed to have his use of social media supervised, though he appeared to violate the agreement several times.