Read up on New York Times v. Sullivan. You can be held liable for knowingly publishing false statements, as Elon Musk did, but mistakenly publishing false statements is protected by the First Amendment. The exception (in the case where the target is a public figure) is if you exhibit “reckless disregard” for the statements’ “truth or falsity”, but that standard is much stricter than it sounds; you have to have “serious doubts” about whether they’re true, and publish them anyway.
I'm still confused by what sense Elon Musk's statements were knowingly false. My memory of the situation was that the Saudis offered to buy Tesla, and Musk considered this to constitute funding being secured. Does "funding secured" have a technical definition that a verbal offer doesn't qualify for, and would Musk be expected to know that difference? I'm asking sincerely; I don't know.
>In truth and in fact, Musk had not even discussed, much less confirmed, key deal terms, including price, with any potential funding source.
>When he made these statements, Musk knew that he had never discussed a going-private transaction at $420 per share with any potential funding source, had done nothing to investigate whether it would be possible for all current investors to remain with Tesla as a private company via a “special purpose fund,” and had not confirmed support of Tesla’s investors for a potential going-private transaction.
New York Times v. Sullivan was a defamation case. The 1st Amendment protects your right to show reckless disregard for truth or falsity, unless you're slandering someone.
Do you have a citation for your second sentence? NYT v. Sullivan was a defamation case, but my assumption is that the level of protection the First Amendment provides to any given act of speech isn't affected much by which law is trying to penalize that speech. I could easily be wrong; is there a case where the issue came up? (Also, Elon's tweet may count as commercial speech, which is less protected in general.)
I'm basing the second sentence in the narrowness of the exceptions to freedom of speech in the US.
If the government were to try to impose restrictions on "untrue" speech in areas outside defamation, particularly in politics, I would view that as a major assault on the 1st Amendment.
