Tesla founder Elon Musk has been cleared of wrongdoing for a tweet in which he said he had "funding secured" to take the electric carmaker back into private ownership.

Taking to Twitter, the social media platform he bought for $44bn last October, he posted: "Thank goodness, the wisdom of the people has prevailed!

According to an economist hired by the shareholders, investor losses were calculated as high as $12bn, after many made decisions about buying and selling their shares based on the tweet.

During the three-week trial, Mr Musk - who also leads SpaceX and Twitter - had argued he thought he had a verbal commitment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund for the deal.

Mr Musk said he eventually scrapped the plan to take Tesla private after his discussions with smaller investors led him to believe they would prefer that the firm remain publicly traded.

He was not in court when the verdict was read, but he was present during closing arguments earlier on Friday as duelling portraits were drawn of him by the rival legal teams.