Ilon Musk testified in court for the second day in a row about his publication on Twitter about plans to privatize Tesla at a price of $420 per share and the availability of secured financing for such a deal, Yahoo writes.

The proposal to privatize Tesla was based on the possibility of using in the financing of the deal multi-billion dollar obligations of the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia, said Ilon Musk in court in San Francisco. The billionaire said support for the fund, which can provide tens of billions in financing, was unequivocal.

The court is hearing a securities law violation and fraud case in a lawsuit brought by Tesla shareholders who claim that tweets by the automaker’s CEO Musk about privatizing the company four years ago were false. On August 8, 2018, Musk tweeted, “contemplating turning Tesla into a private company at [buying back shares from shareholders at] $420.” As a result, the automaker’s stock, which was nearly 20 percent cheaper, spiked sharply and then collapsed 10 days later, which the plaintiffs say cost them big losses.

“This information was not publicly available,” Musk said of the advance notice he received from the Financial Times.

The publication had planned to report that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had acquired a 5% ownership stake in Tesla.

Tesla shareholders are convinced that Musk illegally manipulated the stock price, which means that both he and Tesla’s board of directors should be liable for billions of dollars in losses incurred by those who bought or sold shares in the company after his tweet and before August 17, 2018.

Musk pointed out that at the time he received a verbal, albeit “unequivocal”, commitment from a Saudi fund to finance the deal. Concerned that the public would become aware of the alleged agreement, he said he sent the tweet to ensure all investors had equal access to information.

A spokesman for the Saudi fund, Yasser Al-Rumayyan, later denied guaranteeing that the deal would be financed. And that Musk’s lawyers were unable to get testimony from representatives of the fund outside of US jurisdiction. Musk himself even accused shareholders of deliberately refusing to take depositions from the fund’s representatives.

According to Musk, none of the Saudi fund representatives signed any documents reflecting the financing of the deal, and no specific financing amounts were discussed in his meetings with the fund’s executives.

“No price was discussed, no documents were signed,” Musk said. – Everything was lip service.”

Because the fund agreed to Musk’s earlier offer to buy a 5% stake in the company to demonstrate the fund’s commitment to privatizing Tesla, Musk said he expects the fund to honor its verbal commitment.

Musk also also admitted that he expected Tesla’s stock price to rise in response to his tweet, but has repeatedly said in interviews that it’s difficult to match his tweets to the company’s stock price because it’s not always logical.

“My tweet was absolutely true,” Musk said.

To back up his claims, he said Saudi Arabia’s financing of the deal was not crucial to Tesla’s privatization, as his SpaceX shares and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison’s commitment were enough to fund the company’s privatization.