Musk had ‘handshake deal’ for Tesla buyout: former aide

— Elon Musk’s former chief of staff on Wednesday testified that the billionaire believed he had a “handshake deal” to take Tesla private in 2018 shortly before he tweeted he had the financing for an aborted buyout that is still haunting him in a high-profile trial.

Sam Teller, who worked closely Musk from 2014 to 2019, detailed a series of meetings that his former boss held with representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. His remarks came during testimony that also shed light on the quirks of a billionaire who runs Tesla, rocket ship maker SpaceX and Twitter.

Among other things, Teller said he sometimes had to “soften“Musk’s blunt emails. Teller attributed Musk’s brusque manner to Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism that Musk acknowledged having during a May 2021 television appearance hosting “Saturday Night Live.”

Teller’s testimony came on the ninth day of a trial triggered by a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Tesla shareholders alleging Musk misled them with tweets in August 2018. In the tweets, Musk indicated he had locked up the money to lead a buyout of the electric automaker, ending its then eight-year history as a publicly held company. The case is scheduled to be turned over to the nine-person jury Friday.

Musk, 51, spent much of his roughly eight hours on the witness stand earlier in the trial maintaining he had a valid reason for disclosing he had “funding secured” for a Tesla buyout in an Aug. 7, 2018 tweet at $420 deal — a price that valued the electric automaker at $72 billion at that time.