Elon Musk urges San Francisco court to move Tesla trial to Texas over alleged juror bias

If moving the trial isn’t possible, Musk’s attorneys want it postponed until “negative publicity” regarding his high-profile acquisition of Twitter has died down.

“For the last several months, the local media have saturated this district with biased and negative stories about Mr Musk,” Musk’s attorney said in the court filing.

Musk is set to face a jury in a class action lawsuit that claims he manipulated Tesla’s stock in 2018 when he indicated on Twitter that he was considering taking his electric vehicle company private at $420 per share and that he had even secured funding for the same.

Musk’s tweets caused heavy volatility in Tesla’s share price.

Musk resided in California and Tesla was headquartered in Palo Alto when the tweets were made. Musk eventually moved to Texas in 2020 and relocated Tesla’s headquarters to Austin in 2021.

A month after his 2018 tweet, the Tesla chief executive paid a $20 million fine and settled the fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for making "false and misleading statements." Musk even had to resign as Tesla's chairman and was replaced by Robyn Denholm.

Musk suffered a huge setback last spring when Northern California Senior District Judge Edward M. Chen ruled that Musk’s tweets were “false and reckless”.

The upcoming trial and jury will decide whether the billionaire’s 2018 tweets impacted Tesla’s share price and whether the company or its directors should be held liable and pay damages.

Musk has grabbed the headlines since he appointed himself CEO of Twitter in November 2022, and fired thousands of employees in order to cut down on costs.