Defeat for Tesla boss
Musk has to face a lawsuit in San Francisco
01/14/2023 10:02 am
Tesla boss Musk was already causing unrest in 2018. At the time, he announced on Twitter that he wanted to take Tesla private. The result is price fluctuations and outraged investors. Now it’s time for the trial – and against Musk’s will, it will take place in liberal San Francisco.
Tesla boss Elon Musk has failed in an attempt to move an investor lawsuit over his 2018 tweets from San Francisco to Texas. The hearing is now scheduled to begin on Tuesday, according to court documents. First up is the selection of the jury. Musk’s lawyers had argued that San Francisco jurors were mass biased against the tech billionaire. However, the judge did not accept this.
The lawsuit addresses Musk’s tweets in the summer of 2018 announcing that he plans to take Tesla public and has “secured” funding to do so. It later turned out, however, that there were still no final commitments. In the lawsuit, investors accuse Musk of losing money to the price fluctuations triggered by the tweets.
Musk’s attorneys, citing questionnaires filled out by would-be jurors, argued that Musk could not get a fair trial in California. Around two-thirds of the candidates have negative views of the tech billionaire, they stressed. However, Judge Edward Chen stressed that sympathy was not a factor in jury selection, financial service Bloomberg reported at a hearing on Friday.
So a woman remained in the selection who had written that Musk was “unsympathetic”. Nor was it disqualifying to write in the questionnaire: “The cars are nice, but Mr. Musk is an idiot”. The jury nominee, who called him the “next Trump” and a “narcissist with election ideas,” was screened out.
Musk increasingly unpopular in California
When the lawsuit was filed, Tesla was still headquartered in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley south of San Francisco. Meanwhile, Musk moved headquarters to Austin, Texas. The 51-year-old, long celebrated as a tech visionary, revealed right-wing political views, particularly in the wake of the recent takeover of Twitter, which made him less popular in California, which is traditionally rather liberal.
Judge Chen already found that Musk’s statements in the tweets at the time were wrong. The jury will be advised of this, but should form their own opinion. They must also determine whether Musk acted on purpose and whether investors were hurt by relying on his words.