Elon Musk has requested that his upcoming fraud trial with Tesla Inc. shareholders be moved out of San Francisco.
Elon Musk has requested that his upcoming fraud trial with Tesla Inc. shareholders be moved out of San Francisco. He believes that jurors in the region will be biased against him due to recent layoffs at Twitter Inc. and what he perceives as "local negativity."
The billionaire CEO of Tesla and Twitter has proposed that the trial be held in western Texas, where Tesla moved its headquarters to Austin from northern California about a year ago, according to a filing by his attorneys late Friday.
The lawyers wrote that a substantial portion of the San Francisco-area jury pool is likely to be biased against Mr. Musk due to recent layoffs at one of his companies. They said that this existing bias has been compounded by negative publicity surrounding the events.
Investors who are suing Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk argue that his August 2018 tweets about taking the company private with "funding secured" were false and cost them billions of dollars by causing Tesla's stock price to fluctuate wildly. Musk has said that Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund had agreed to support his attempt to take Tesla private, but the trial is set to begin on January 17th.
Musk's claim that he had "funding secured" for a potential Tesla buyout was put to the test in court on Monday.
The judge in the case ruled that Musk must face a trial over the now-infamous tweet, which could see the Tesla CEO facing serious repercussions if he is found guilty.
This is not the first time Musk has been in hot water over his use of Twitter, and it remains to be seen how this latest incident will impact his future as the head of Tesla.
"This motion is not being brought simply because Mr. Musk has been the subject of negative news coverage," according to the filing. "Mr. Musk has been a public figure for more than a decade and recognizes that being the subject of negative and even unfair media attention comes with the territory. However, the local media and political establishment have attempted to depict Mr. Musk as personally responsible for causing material economic harm to the significant number of potential jurors impacted by the layoffs and to the City of San Francisco as a whole. This is simply not the case, and we believe that moving the trial to a different venue is necessary to ensure that Mr. Musk receives a fair trial."
Musk has had disagreements with San Francisco officials after he turned some space at the company's Market Street headquarters into makeshift bedrooms, which may have violated city building codes. Musk has also criticized Mayor London Breed over the city's fentanyl crisis.
Musk and San Francisco officials are sparring over an investigation into bedrooms at Twitter. Musk says the probe is an invasion of privacy, while officials say it's necessary to ensure the safety of employees.
He bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October and installed himself as chief executive officer. After Tesla's corporate headquarters moved to Austin in December 2021, the company still has a large presence in California. In a blog post this week, the company said it has 47,000 employees in the state.
Musk's attorneys believe that western Texas would provide a more equitable venue than northern California.
The lawyers argued that Mr. Musk is far more likely to receive a fair trial in the Western District of Texas. They noted that Mr. Musk has not been the subject of extensive and inflammatory media coverage in Texas, as he has been in California. They argued that this would make it easier for Mr. Musk to get a fair trial in Texas.
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