Elon Musk’s lawyers aim to move the trial from California to Texas, citing ‘local negativity’
Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks at an event in Hawthorne, California April 30, 2015.
Patrick T. Fallon | Reuters
lawyer for Tesla and Elon Musk is asking a federal judge in San Francisco to move or delay an upcoming trial from Northern California to West Texas, saying it won’t be able to find fair jurors and citing “local negative ” for Musk.
Musk, and other current and former Tesla board members, will face a jury in a shareholder class action lawsuit that claims the CEO manipulated Tesla stock in 2018 when he tweeted that he is considering privatizing his electric vehicle company at $420 a share and has “guaranteed capital” to do so.
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Trading in Tesla stock initially halted, then the stock fluctuated wildly for weeks after the tweet.
That year, Musk resided in California and Tesla was based in Palo Alto. Tesla and SpaceX CEO move your place to Texas in 2020 and his electric car company has moved its headquarters to Austin in 2021.
In 2022, Northern California Senior District Judge Edward M. Chen, who is overseeing the trial, ruled that Musk’s claims in 2018 were false and that he tweeted them intentionally.
The trial is coming and a jury will decide whether Musk’s now infamous tweets matter to shareholders, whether they impact Tesla’s share price, and whether the company or whether the director of the company is liable for liability and compensation for damages.
In a proposed relocation, lawyers representing Tesla and Musk argued that the CEO drew widespread and negative publicity in California after taking over the San Francisco-based social media company Twitter. in October 2022.
Musk appointed himself CEO of Twitter and has cut thousands of employees in a tumultuous series of layoffs and layoffs since the deal ended.
During a recent public appearance in San Francisco, Musk gets booed after comedian Dave Chappelle invited him on stage.
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Alex Spiro, who have represented Musk in several court matters, argued in this latest filing:
“A significant portion of the jury in this County may have a personal and material bias against Mr. Musk because one of his companies recently fired employees as Individual potential jurors — or their friends and relatives — may have been directly affected. negative and offensive surrounding events.”
Spiro added in the filing that “the negativity towards Mr. Musk is not just in the press.” He said there are frequent rallies and select activities in front of Musk’s San Francisco offices, adding that some are “endorsed and encouraged by local political figures.”
Musk and his attorneys had previously argued that his claims of a possible private settlement for Tesla in 2018 did not violate the law.
Tesla CEO has repeatedly confirmed to have shaken hands with investors from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to take Tesla private at $420 a share. Text messages revealed in another test in 2022 suggests that Saudi PIF investors did not fully agree to fund a Tesla deal.
Court filings this month in a securities class-action lawsuit show that Musk’s lawyers have subpoenas four people to help run Saudi Public Investment Fund to testify in this trial include Naif Al Mogren, Saad Al Jarboa, Turqi Alnowaise and Yasir Al-Rumayyan.
Read profile from In Re: Tesla Inc Securities Litigation. (Case 3:18-cv-04865-EMC) here:
