Elon Musk is disliked with a ‘passion’ by 82% of San Francisco’s would-be jurors, his lawyers say

Questionnaires from nearly 200 would-be jurors returned to the federal judge handling the case reinforce the argument that the pool of Northern California jurors for the trial starting next week is “biased against Mr. Musk,” and that many biases are related to the claims. lawsuit – “that is, Mr. Musk use and honesty on Twitter,” the lawyer said.

The latest filing by the CEO of Tesla Inc. and new owner Twitter Inc. is part of a push to have the case brought by Tesla shareholders moved elsewhere, preferably Texas, due to “local negativity” in San Francisco after Musk recently took it down on Twitter. workforce in an effort to reinvent social media platforms.

Investors called Musk’s tweet in August 2018 about taking the electric car maker with “safe funds” “undeniably fake” and costing billions of dollars by causing wild swings in Tesla’s stock price. Musk stated that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has agreed to support his efforts to take Tesla private.

The questionnaire, which is not publicly available, showed that potential jurors not only disliked Musk, but also felt negative “arousals,” attorneys said in the filing. Details of what the jurors wrote were redacted.

The response showed “not only did the majority of potential jurors dislike Mr. Musk, but they weren’t afraid to announce it proudly and clearly to the court,” the lawyer said.

Lawyers for the shareholders contend that Musk is a celebrity who attracts media attention around the world – much of it negative – and that his presence on Twitter is partly to blame.

But the investor’s lawyer also said that none of the jurors would have worked at Twitter and that only two or three potential panelists knew people who worked at the company.

“The potential for bias arising from Musk’s management of Twitter is non-existent,” he said.

A hearing on Musk’s request to move the case is scheduled for Friday and the trial will begin on January 17.