SAN FRANCISCO – Lawyers for Tesla shareholders who are suing Tesla CEO Elon Musk over a misleading tweet want a federal judge to deny Musk’s request to move an upcoming trial from California to Texas.
Musk claims that possible jurors in the San Francisco federal court where the case was filed four years ago will treat him unfairly.
However, Tesla shareholders’ attorneys asserted in a Wednesday filing that there are no legal grounds to move the upcoming trial, which is an Aug. 7, 2018, tweet in which Musk indicated he had lined up financing for a Tesla buyout. A deal that never materialized and resulted in a $40 million settlement with U.S. securities regulators.
The lawyers also said that Musk is the only one to blame for any bad impressions because he is so active on Twitter, which he owns and runs now.
For Better Or Worse, Musk Is a Celebrity
In their 19-page response to the transfer request, the shareholders’ lawyers said, “For better or worse, Musk is a celebrity who gets attention from media around the world.” “His Twitter presence alone is partially to blame for this. Musk would be practically untriable before a jury if all required to exclude a jury pool were “bad” attention, given his penchant for drawing “negative” media.
The filing comes less than a week after Musk’s lawyer, requested U.S. District Judge Edward Chen to transfer the case to Texas, where Musk plans to relocate Tesla‘s headquarters in 2021 after almost two decades in Silicon Valley. Spiro is requesting a delay in the commencement of jury selection, which is currently set for Tuesday if the trial is not shifted.
Telsa Shareholders Upset
The lawyers for the shareholders said that their 2018 case would never have been allowed in a federal court in Texas because Musk’s tweet about buying out Tesla happened when Tesla was based in Palo Alto, California. Also on the list of witnesses are several former Tesla executives who live in California and would have to deal with a lot of trouble if the trial was moved to Texas.
Chen has set up a Friday hearing for more arguments about Musk’s request to move or delay the trial. The judge has already decided that Musk’s tweet about the buyout Tesla was false, so it will be up to a jury to decide if he was careless when he sent it out and if it cost Tesla shareholders money.
After correcting for two stock splits since 2018, Tesla’s shares are now worth approximately six times what they were at the time of Musk’s phony buyout comments.
Musk has been seen as a tech pioneer in the San Francisco Bay Area for years, but Spiro thinks the bad press has hurt his reputation since he bought Twitter for $44 billion in October. Since then, Musk has fired or forced out more than half of Twitter’s employees, and his critics say he has taken away the service’s protections against fake news and bad content.
Juror Bias A Likelihood
According to Spiro, the opposition to such initiatives, which Musk has defended as steps to reduce Twitter’s losses and maintain free speech rights, raised the likelihood that potential jurors will be biased against him. Among other things, Spiro mentioned the likelihood that possible jurors from the San Francisco Bay Area were recently laid off at Twitter or knew someone who was laid off after Musk’s takeover.
To refute that claim, the shareholders’ counsel of Tesla highlighted the over 200 jury questionnaires sent to Chen. According to the attorneys, only two or three jurors admitted to knowing someone who works at Twitter.
SOURCE – (AP)
