SAN FRANCISCO: Electric car company Tesla CEO Elon Musk will face trial on charges of manipulating the stock market through a tweet on Tuesday after a federal judge ordered the case moved out of California. The request was rejected.
The case dates back to August 2018 when Musk tweeted that he had enough funding to take Tesla private, which sent the company’s share price into a tailspin.
Musk was quickly sued by shareholders for allegedly costing him billions of dollars with a Twitter post that said funding was “secured” to buy out the company’s shareholders.
Judge Edward Chen on Friday declined to move the proceedings to Texas, the southern state where Musk has moved Tesla’s headquarters and jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday, according to a court spokesman.
Defense lawyers had argued the billionaire would be denied a fair trial in San Francisco, where he bought Twitter in late October and has been widely criticized for his decisions since taking over the social media firm.
After taking over Twitter, Musk fired more than half of its 7,500 employees, mostly in San Francisco, and radically changed the site’s content moderation policies.
“For the past several months, local media have saturated the district with biased and negative stories about Mr. Musk that have fostered highly partisan biases in the jury pool,” the CEO’s lawyers argued in a filing. .
“The local media, deviating from how they typically cover these stories, held Mr. Musk personally responsible for the shortfall and accused him of violating the law,” the lawyers said. ” said the lawyers.
According to JEE News, Judge Chen expressed confidence during the hearing that impartial jurors could be selected.
Musk’s brief tweet in 2018 has already caught the attention of authorities.
The US stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, ordered Musk to step down as chairman of Tesla’s board and pay a $20 million fine.
