Musk’s attorneys want to delay the trial until the negative press surrounding the billionaire’s purchase of Twitter has subsided, if that is not possible.
Elon Musk has pleaded with a federal judge to move a shareholder lawsuit trial out of San Francisco because he claims that potential jurors have been swayed by negative coverage in the local media against him.

Instead, Musk’s attorneys argue in a late Friday filing that the trial should be moved to the federal court in the western district of Texas, less than two weeks before it was scheduled to begin on January 17. That district includes Austin, the state capital, where Musk relocated Tesla, his electric car business, in late 2021.

The shareholder lawsuit is based on Musk’s tweets in August 2018 when he said he had enough money to take Tesla private for $420 per share, which caused a lot of volatility in the share price.
Judge Edward Chen ruled that Musk’s tweets were false and reckless, which resulted in a victory for the shareholders in the spring.

Musk’s attorneys want to delay the trial until the negative press surrounding the billionaire’s purchase of Twitter has subsided, if that is not possible.

In a court filing, attorney Alex Spiro wrote, “The local media have saturated this district with biased and negative stories about Mr. Musk” Spiro wrote that these media reports have attributed personal responsibility for the recent layoffs at Twitter to Musk and alleged that the layoffs may have even violated laws.

“Musk’s concerns are unfounded and his motion is meritless,” stated the shareholders’ attorneys, emphasizing the request’s last-minute timing.

In an email, attorney Nicholas Porritt wrote, “The Northern District of California is the proper venue for this lawsuit and where it has been actively litigated for over four years.”

Also mentioned in the filing by Musk’s lawyers is the fact that since he bought Twitter at the end of October, about 1,000 people in the San Francisco area have lost their jobs.

According to the filing, “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.” This is due to the fact that the layoffs occurred at one of Musk’s companies.

According to the filing, the mayor of San Francisco and other local officials have also criticized Musk for the job cuts.