Musk Says He Can’t Get Fair Trial In San Francisco, Favors Texas
Musk said the jurors in the region will probably be biased against him because of recent layoffs at Twitter Inc. and “local negativity.”
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., arrives at court during the SolarCity trial in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., on Tuesday, July 13, 2021.
Musk was cool but combative as he testified in a Delaware courtroom that Tesla's more than $2 billion acquisition of SolarCity in 2016 wasn't a bailout of the struggling solar provider.
shareholders moved out of San Francisco, saying jurors in the region will probably be biased against him because of recent layoffs at Twitter Inc. and “local negativity.”
Twitter proposed the trial be held in western Texas, where Tesla moved its headquarters to Austin from northern a year ago, according to a filing Friday.
The existing baseline bias has been compounded, expanded, and reinforced by the negative and inflammatory local publicity surrounding the events.
Investors suing Tesla and Musk, its chief executive officer, argue that his August 2018 tweets “funding secured” were “indisputably false” by spurring wild swings in Tesla’s stock price.
Musk has maintained that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had agreed to support his attempt to take Tesla private. The trial is set to begin January 17.
Mr. Musk has been a public figure for recognizes that being the subject of negative and even unfair media attention comes with the territory,” according to the filing.
Musk has sparred with Twitter’s hometown of San Francisco after turning some space at the company’s into makeshift bedrooms, a possible violation of city building codes.
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 formidable presence in California.
“Mr. Musk is far likelier to receive a fair trial in the Western District of Texas,” they wrote. Texas news outlets publish far fewer stories about Mr. Musk.”
“Mr. Musk has not been the subject of overwhelming, pervasive, and inflammatory press coverage by the local media in the Western District of Texas, like he has in this district.