Elon Musk has asked a federal judge to move a trial in a shareholder lawsuit out of San Francisco because he believes negative local media coverage has biased potential jurors against him.
Musk’s lawyers asked late Friday for the trial to be moved to a federal court in West Texas, which includes the state capital, Austin. Musk relocated his electric car company, Tesla, to Austin in late 2021.
If such a move is not possible, Musk’s lawyers have requested that the trial, scheduled to start on January 17, be postponed until the negative publicity surrounding Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has subsided.
“Over the past several months, the local media has saturated this district with biased and negative stories about Mr. Musk,” attorney Alex Spiro wrote in a court filing. Those stories have blamed Musk for recent firings on Twitter, Spiro wrote, and have pointed out that the firings have violated the law.
The shareholder lawsuit stems from Musk’s August 2018 tweets, when he said he had enough funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share, an announcement that sparked sharp volatility in Tesla’s share price. Tesla.
In a shareholder victory last spring, Judge Edward Chen ruled the tweets were false and reckless.
The filing by Musk’s lawyers also notes that Twitter has laid off about 1,000 residents of the San Francisco metropolitan area since it acquired the company in late October.