Plaintiff's law firm issued a press release on August 10, 2018, announcing the lawsuit. According to the press release, the Complaint charges that Tesla and the Company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by issuing false and misleading statements regarding the CEO taking the Company private. In particular, and importantly, at 12:48pm eastern standard time on August 7, 2018, the CEO issued a statement via Twitter that "funding" for the deal had been "secured" ("Funding secured"). In reaction to the CEO's Tweet, the price of Tesla's stock soared to an intra-day high of $387.46, $45.47 above the previous day's closing price, closing at $379.57 per share. The Complaint alleges that the CEO was not telling the truth. Rather, he had Tweeted to decimate the Company's short-sellers who were forced to cover their positions over the succeeding days at artificially inflated prices. Indeed, the price of Tesla stock also remained inflated throughout the next day, August 8, 2018.

On November 27, 2018, the Court issued an Order consolidating cases and appointing Lead Plaintiff and Counsel. The consolidated cases are to be captioned "In re Tesla Inc. Securities Litigation." On January 16, 2019, Lead Plaintiff filed a consolidated Complaint. On March 27, the Court stayed the proceedings pending mandamus proceedings before the Ninth Circuit.