The billionaire boss of Tesla Inc and Twitter Inc wants his upcoming trial in a fraud case brought by Tesla shareholders moved from the Bay Area, arguing jurors there are biased against him due to recent layoffs at Twitter and 'local negativity'. — Reuters
If being unpopular was disqualification for a trial, Elon Musk wouldn’t face a jury anywhere in the US - and maybe the world, according to lawyers suing him in San Francisco.
The billionaire boss of Tesla Inc and Twitter Inc wants his upcoming trial in a fraud case brought by Tesla shareholders moved from the Bay Area, arguing jurors there are biased against him due to recent layoffs at Twitter and "local negativity.”
But lawyers for the shareholders said in response that he’s a celebrity who garners media attention around the globe, his presence on Twitter being partly to blame for that.
"If ‘negative’ attention was all that was required to disqualify a jury pool, Musk would effectively be untriable before a jury given his knack for attracting ‘negative’ coverage,” the attorneys wrote in a filing Wednesday.
That would also be true in western Texas, they argue, where Musk suggested the trial should be moved. The CEO "seemingly attracts a similar level of ‘negative’ attention, according to a cursory search of headlines in Musk’s hometown paper,” they said in the filing.
As an example, they cited a Dec 16 story in the Austin Chronicle listing Musk as No. 1 "worst resident” of Austin.
Investors allege Musk’s August 2018 tweets about taking the electric-car maker private with "funding secured” were "indisputably false” and cost them billions of dollars by spurring wild swings in Tesla’s stock price. Musk has maintained that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had agreed to support his attempt to take Tesla private.
A hearing on Musk’s request to move the case is scheduled for Friday and the trial is set to begin Jan 17.
A lawyer for Musk and Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s filing. – Bloomberg
