Back-and-Forth Musk vs. Dimon $200 Billion Lawsuit Escalation

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] Tesla, led by Elon Musk, has filed a countersuit against JP Morgan, the largest bank in the United States, over a breach of warrant agreement lawsuit, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and others on the 24th (local time).

According to the reports, Tesla submitted a complaint to the New York Federal Court, stating that "the dispute arose due to JP Morgan's bad faith and greed."

In the complaint, Tesla claimed, "JP Morgan, aiming for a windfall, is retaliating after Tesla withdrew from a major business transaction."

Earlier, JP Morgan filed a lawsuit against Tesla for $162 million (approximately 200 billion KRW), and Tesla responded by filing a damages lawsuit against JP Morgan.

JP Morgan filed a complaint with the Southern District Court of New York in November last year, alleging that Tesla refused to exercise JP Morgan's common stock call option expiring in June-July of this year.

According to the complaint, JP Morgan entered into a call option contract in 2014 to purchase Tesla's common stock at $560 per share in June-July of this year.

However, in 2018, CEO Musk tweeted that he was "considering taking Tesla private," causing Tesla's stock price to repeatedly decline.

JP Morgan argued that Musk's tweet constituted a material corporate transaction that could adjust the exercise price.

At that time, JP Morgan lowered the exercise price to maintain an equivalent fair market value after Musk's tweet, but then readjusted the exercise price to reflect the stock price increase after Musk abandoned the plan to take Tesla private.

A JP Morgan spokesperson issued a statement in response to Tesla's countersuit, dismissing Tesla's claims as unworthy of consideration and stating that the matter would be resolved if Tesla fulfills its contractual obligations.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.