WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk He has urged a federal judge to change the trial A shareholder case Outside of San Francisco, he says negative local media coverage biased potential jurors against him.
Instead, in a filing filed late Friday, Musk’s lawyers argued that the trial should be moved to federal court in West Texas, which includes the state capital of Austin. Musk is moving his electric car company Tesla to Austin in late 2021.
If an action isn’t possible, Musk’s lawyers have insisted that the trial, scheduled to begin Jan. 17, be postponed until the negative publicity surrounding Musk’s acquisition of Twitter dies down.
“Over the past several months, the local media has been saturated in this district with biased and negative stories about Mr. Musk,” attorney Alex Spiro wrote in a court filing. Those items on Twitter personally blamed Musk for the recent layoffs, Spiro wrote, and alleged that the job cuts may have violated laws.
Shareholder case From Musk’s tweets in August 2018 When he said he had enough financing to take Tesla private at $420 a share, the announcement sent Tesla’s stock price wildly swinging.
A A win for shareholders last springJudge Edward Chen ruled the tweets were false and irresponsible.
According to a filing by Musk’s lawyers, Twitter has laid off about 1,000 residents in the San Francisco area. He bought the company At the end of October.
“A substantial portion of the jury panel … is likely to have personal and material bias against Mr. Musk as a result of the recent dismissal of individual prospective jurors — or their friends and relatives — as individual prospective jurors at one of his firms. The impact,” the filing said.
Musk has been criticized by San Francisco’s mayor and other local officials for the job cuts.