Elon Musk says he can’t get a fair trial in California in Tesla shareholder lawsuit, wants Texas
USA – Elon Musk urged a federal judge to move the trial to shareholder lawsuit out of San Francisco because he said negative coverage in the local media had biased potential jurors against him.
Instead, in a filing late Friday — less than two weeks before the trial begins on January 17 — Musk’s attorneys argued that the case should be referred to federal court in the Western District. west Texas. That county includes the state capital of Austin, where Musk moved his electric car company, Tesla
TSLA,
by the end of 2021.
The shareholder lawsuit originated from Musk’s tweets in August 2018 when he said he had enough money to take Tesla private at $420 a share – an announcement that sent Tesla’s stock price fluctuating.
in one win for shareholders Last spring, Judge Edward Chen ruled that Musk’s tweets were untrue and reckless.
If adjournment is not possible, Musk’s lawyers want it to be adjourned until the negative publicity regarding the billionaire’s purchase of Twitter subsides.
“Over the past few months, the local media has flooded the area with negative and biased stories about Mr. Musk,” attorney Alex Spiro wrote in court filings. Those news items, Spiro wrote, blamed Musk personally for recent employee layoffs at Twitter, and allege that job cuts might even break the law.
The shareholders’ attorney emphasized the timing of the last-minute request, saying, “Musk’s concerns are unfounded and his petition is futile.”
“The Northern District of California is the right location for this lawsuit and where it has been actively litigated for more than four years,” attorney Nicholas Porritt wrote in an email.
The filings of Musk’s attorneys also note that Twitter has laid off about 1,000 residents in the San Francisco area since he buy company at the end of October.
“A substantial portion of the jury panel… is likely to have personal and material prejudice against Mr. Musk due to one of his companies recently firing employees as jurors. Individual potential employees — or their friends and relatives — may have been personally impacted,” the filing said.
According to the filing, Musk has also been criticized by the mayor of San Francisco and other local officials for cutting jobs.
