A criminal complaint has been lodged against Elon Musk and Twitter with the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, citing possible fraud committed to the detriment of users.
The complaint, filed under the case number 253 UJs 1012/23, alleges that Musk charged credit cards of Twitter users while arbitrarily suspending their verified accounts without providing any explanation.
The Berliner Tageszeitung sheds light on this matter, emphasizing that while blocking user accounts is a routine occurrence on Twitter, the continuous charging of funds to users’ credit cards adds a new dimension to the issue. The Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office in the Federal Republic of Germany has taken an interest in the case, raising questions about the extent of power granted to platforms like Twitter and when regulatory authorities should intervene to safeguard the interests of Twitter users.
This is not the first time Elon Musk has faced legal scrutiny. Currently, he is also embroiled in an investor lawsuit as a result of his tweets in August 2018, where he prematurely announced plans to take Tesla off the stock market, claiming to have secured financing. Subsequently, it was revealed that no firm commitments from investors existed. A lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit has bluntly stated, “Elon Musk lied.” In 2022, US Judge Edward Chen of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California had already ruled that Musk’s statements in those tweets were untrue.