“This could present you with an opportunity to revisit price,” the banker wrote. “It may not be a costless ask, as you will have to be perceived as being willing to risk paying the reverse break fee. However, the threat of walking away may be sufficient to get them to agree to a lower price.”

A later email from Barclays after the tweet said investors were now giving the deal “50/50 odds” and the share price would not move higher because they feared “more tweets with deal implications.”

Musk replied: “Matches my understanding of things.”

Shareholders are expected to ask for billions in damages if the jury rules in their favor.

“Musk believes he can say or do whatever he wants anytime he wants, regardless of the consequences,” an attorney for the four plaintiffs said. After getting cold feet on the deal and struggling to sell enough Tesla stock to finance it, he started “a public spectacle to trash the company and drive stock price down.”

Musk grew frustrated during questioning, accusing the lawyers of formulating questions “designed to mislead the jury” and trying to “put words into my mouth.”

He added he had not had time to read his deposition transcripts or prepare for the hearing because he has “an insane workload, 100 hours a week.”

During the two-week trial, plaintiffs plan to call on several of Musk’s top lieutenants, including his lawyer Alex Spiro, who recused himself from acting as an attorney in the case because he is also a witness.

On Tuesday, they questioned the head of his family office, Jared Birchall, who said Musk’s tweets about the deal were made in frustration and work never stopped on the deal.

Musk is scheduled to appear in a separate trial in Oakland next month. He has sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman in an attempt to block the $730 billion start-up’s transformation from a non-profit to a for-profit company. Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI in 2015 but left three years later after his attempts to buy it were rebuffed.

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