SAN FRANCISCO — Lawyers for Tesla shareholders suing the electric vehicle maker’s CEO Elon Musk over a misleading tweet are urging a federal judge to reject the billionaire’s request to move an upcoming trial to Texas from California.
Musk contends he will be treated unfairly by potential jurors in the San Francisco federal court where the 4-year-old case was filed. “For better or worse, Musk is a celebrity who garners attention from the media around the globe,” the shareholders’ attorneys wrote in their 19-page opposition to the transfer request. “His footprint on Twitter alone is partially to blame for that. If ‘negative’ attention was all that was required to disqualify a jury pool, Musk would effectively be untriable before a jury given his knack for attracting ‘negative” coverage.
Chen has scheduled a hearing for Friday to hear further arguments about Musk’s effort to move or delay the trial. The judge already has determined that Musk’s buyout tweet was false, leaving it to a jury to decide whether he acted recklessly by posting it and whether it caused financial harm to Tesla shareholders. After adjusting for two stock splits made since 2018, Tesla’s shares are now worth nearly six times more than at the time of Musk’s tweets about the bogus buyout.
The negativity that Mr. Musk incites is only because he has dared to expose the actual truth.