Tesla-Boss Elon Musk (51) has failed in an attempt to move the trial of an investor lawsuit related to his tweets from 2018 from San Francisco to Texas. The trial is now scheduled to begin on Tuesday, according to Friday’s court documents.
When the lawsuit was filed, Tesla was still headquartered in Palo Alto im Silicon Valley south of San Francisco. Meanwhile, Musk moved headquarters to Austin, Texas. Long celebrated as a tech visionary, the 51-year-old reveals, particularly in the course of the recent acquisition of Twitter right-wing political views, which made him unpopular in traditionally liberal California.
The lawsuit addresses Musk’s tweets in the summer of 2018 announcing that he wanted Tesla off the market stock exchange and have “secured” the financing for it. It later turned out, however, that there were still no final commitments. In the lawsuit, investors accuse Musk of losing money to the price fluctuations triggered by the tweets. The last badly battered Tesla stock
went down after the tweets at the time.
Juries are said to be biased against Musk
First up is the selection of the jury. Musk’s lawyers had argued that San Francisco jurors were mass biased against the tech billionaire. They argued, citing questionnaires filled out by potential jurors, that Musk could not get a fair trial in California. Around two-thirds of the candidates have negative views of the tech billionaire, they stressed.
However, Judge Edward Chen did not accept this. Chen stressed sympathy was not a factor in jury selection, financial service Bloomberg reported at a hearing on Friday. So a woman remained in the selection who had written that Musk was “unsympathetic”. Nor was it disqualifying to write in the questionnaire: “The cars are nice, but Mr. Musk is an idiot”. The jury nominee, who called him the “next Trump” and a “narcissist with election ideas,” was screened out.
Did Musk act on purpose?
The judge has already determined that Musk’s statements in the tweets at the time were wrong. The jury will be advised of this, but should form their own opinion. They must also determine whether Musk acted on purpose and whether investors were hurt by relying on his words.