Lawyers for electric vehicle company Tesla and its chief executive officer, Elon Musk, have asked a federal judge to move or delay a trial from California to Texas, arguing that impartial juries cannot be found due to “local negativity.” “what’s in that state towards Musk.
Musk and various members of the Tesla board will face a popular jury this year in a shareholder class action lawsuitwhich states that the CEO manipulated Tesla’s stock in 2018 when he tweeted that he was considering taking his company private of electric vehicles.
So, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claimed that the information disseminated in the tweet was “false and misleading”fined Musk and Tesla $20 million and also forced Musk out of Tesla’s three-year presidency.
At the next trial this year Whether and how those Musk tweets affected Tesla’s stock price will be determined.and whether the company or its directors should be held liable and pay damages.
In a motion to transfer the venue filed this week, lawyers representing the company and the mogul argue that Musk has been widely criticized in California after buying the social network Twitter in October of last year for $44 billion.
After the purchase of the social network, Musk appointed himself CEO of Twitter and exercised mass layoffs at the California-based company.
“Local negativity towards Musk is not limited to the press. There are regular protests and pickets outside Musk’s San Francisco offices“, detail the lawyers in the document presented this Friday that the Efe agency echoes.
Last December Musk was booed after comedian Dave Chappelle invited him up on stage at one of his performances in San Francisco (California).
In 2018 Musk resided in California and Tesla was headquartered in the Californian city of Palo Alto.
However, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX moved to Texas in 2020 and his electric vehicle company moved its headquarters to Austin, Texas in 2021.