SAN FRANCISCO—Elon Musk testified on Monday that he was sure he had backing from Saudi financiers in 2018 to take Tesla Inc. private, as he defended against claims he defrauded investors by tweeting later that year about his electric car company.
At a trial in San Francisco federal court, Musk told the investors’ lawyer Nicholas Porritt that he had met with representatives of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, at Tesla’s Fremont, California, factory on July 31, 2018, and that “PIF unequivocally wanted to take Tesla private.”
At stake are millions of dollars for shareholders who claim they suffered losses after Musk wrote on Twitter in August 2018 that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 per share, and that “investor support is confirmed.”…