Musk says he can’t get a fair trial in California, and he wants Texas

Washington (AP) – Elon Musk Urged a federal judge to change the trial in Shareholder lawsuit out of San Francisco because he says negative local media coverage has biased potential jurors against him.

Instead, in a filing filed late Friday, Musk’s attorneys argued that the trial should be moved to a federal court in West Texas, which includes the state capital of Austin. Musk moved the headquarters of his electric car company, Tesla, to Austin in late 2021.

If a move is not possible, Musk’s lawyers have urged a postponement of the trial, set to begin Jan. 17, until the negative publicity about Musk’s purchase of Twitter is over.

“For the past several months, the local media has saturated this area with biased and negative stories about Mr. Musk,” attorney Alex Spiro wrote in the lawsuit. Those elements blamed Musk personally for Twitter’s recent layoffs, Spiro wrote, and charged that the job cuts may have broken laws.

Shareholder lawsuit Stemming from Musk’s tweets in August 2018 When he said he had enough financing to acquire Tesla at $420 a share, an announcement caused wild swings in Tesla’s stock price.

in A victory for shareholders last springJudge Edward Chen ruled that the tweets were false and reckless.

Musk’s attorney’s report also notes that Twitter has laid off about 1,000 San Francisco area residents since then. bought the company in late October.

“A significant portion of the jury cohort … is likely to hold a personal and material prejudice against Mr. Musk as a result of recent layoffs at one of his companies as individual potential jurors — or their friends and relatives — may have been personally affected,” the filing said.

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The report said Musk was criticized by the San Francisco mayor and other local officials for the job cuts.

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