
Criminal complaint in Berlin, Germany, against Elon Musk and Twitter for possible fraud to the detriment of Twitter users

"The bird is set free," Elon Musk tweeted full-bodied a few months ago. At the end of October 2022, the tech billionaire (51) took over the short message service, chaotic weeks followed, now there is even a criminal complaint at the Berlin public prosecutor's office (Federal Republic of Germany) against Elon Musk personally and against Twitter, file number of the Berlin public prosecutor: 253 UJs 1012/23, because of payments that Twitter charged to Twitter users via their credit cards, mind you for verified Twitter accounts that were previously blocked by Twitter without giving reasons.
Moreover, this is not the first time that Elon Musk has been investigated, as there is currently also an investor lawsuit against Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The lawsuit is about Musk's tweets from August 2018 with the hasty announcement that he wanted to take the electric car company off the stock exchange and had secured the financing for it. It later emerged that there were no firm commitments from investors.
"Elon Musk lied," said a lawyer for the plaintiffs. These lies had cost ordinary investors like his clients millions, he argued. It was undeniable that the financing had not been secured in reality, he said. And only Musk's tweets had triggered the price fluctuations that had caused investors to lose money.
Anyone who builds without a permit and violates environmental regulations should actually face severe penalties. But not so with multi-billionaire Elon Musk (51). The Tesla boss's gigantic electric car factory in Grünheide (Brandenburg, Federal Republic of Germany) has violated building and environmental laws six times since 2020.
Elon Musk's e-car manufacturer Tesla has also been targeted by German data protection authorities. Confidential data of more than 100,000 employees, including from Brandenburg (Federal Republic of Germany), was available within the company.
Users were recently able to see that not everything always runs smoothly at Twitter anyway, because Ron DeSantis declared his US presidential candidacy on Twitter alongside Elon Musk, or at least he tries to - then Twitter's technology went up in smoke.
In addition, it should be noted that Twitter, like many other online platforms, has signed the voluntary EU Code of Conduct against Disinformation, but now, according to current information from the EU Commission, Twitter wants to withdraw from the EU agreement to combat disinformation on the Internet. EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said clearly: "Commitments remain. Twitter can run away, but they cannot hide".
Blocking user accounts is the order of the day at Twitter, but the fact that they then continuously charge users money from their credit cards makes the matter explosive and is currently occupying the public prosecutor's office in Berlin (Federal Republic of Germany), whereby the question is in any case how much power can a medium like Twitter be granted at all and when should regulators intervene to protect Twitter users?
We will continue to follow the case closely and report on further developments as soon as new information becomes available. It remains to be seen how the criminal charges against Elon Musk and Twitter will develop and what consequences might result.
On a factual level, it should be noted here that according to Article 48 of the Charter on Fundamental Rights in the European Union, the presumption of innocence applies to defendants and accused persons, which must also apply in the case of the criminal charges against Elon Musk, because of the 'suspicion of fraud to the detriment of Twitter users'. (P.Hansen--BTZ)