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

WASHINGTON –

Elon Musk has urged a federal decide to shift a trial in a shareholder lawsuit out of San Francisco as a result of he says unfavorable native media protection has biased potential jurors in opposition to him.

Instead, in a submitting submitted late Friday, Musk’s attorneys argue that the trial must be moved to a federal court docket in western Texas, which incorporates the state capital of Austin. Musk relocated his electrical automotive firm, Tesla, to Austin in late 2021.

If a transfer is not attainable, Musk’s attorneys urged that the trial, scheduled to start Jan. 17, be postponed till unfavorable publicity round Musk’s buy of Twitter has died down.

“For the last several months, the local media have saturated this district with biased and negative stories about Mr. Musk,” lawyer Alex Spiro wrote in a court docket submitting. Those objects have personally blamed Musk for latest layoffs at Twitter, Spiro wrote, and have charged that the job cuts could have even violated legal guidelines.

The shareholder lawsuit stems from Musk’s tweets in August 2018 when he stated he had ample financing to take Tesla personal at $420 a share, an announcement that triggered heavy volatility in Tesla’s share value.

In a victory for the shareholders final spring, Judge Edward Chen dominated that the tweets have been false and reckless.

The submitting by Musk’s attorneys additionally notes that Twitter has laid off about 1,000 residents within the San Francisco space since he bought the corporate in late October.

“A substantial portion of the jury pool … is likely to hold a personal and material bias against Mr. Musk as a result of recent layoffs at one of his companies as individual prospective jurors – or their friends and relatives – may have been personally impacted,” the submitting stated.

Musk has additionally been criticized by San Francisco’s mayor and different native officers for the job cuts, the submitting stated.