Attorneys for Musk and his company are asking a federal judge in San Francisco to delay a trial from Northern California to Western Texas because they won't be able to find impartial jurors.
A shareholder class action has been filed against Musk and other current and former board members, accusing them of manipulating the company's stock price in order to take it private.
The stock trading stopped and shares were volatile for a while.
Musk lived in California and Palo Alto was where the company was founded. His electric vehicle company relocated its headquarters to Austin in 2021.
Senior District Judge Edward M. Chen ruled that Musk's statements were false and that he knew about them.
The upcoming trial and jury will decide if Musk's now infamous tweet mattered to shareholders, if and how they impacted the company's share price, and whether the company or its directors should be held liable.
In a motion to transfer venue, attorneys for Musk argue that the CEO has received a lot of negative publicity in California after taking over a San Francisco-based social media company.
Since the deal closed, Musk has fired thousands of employees in a number of chaotic firings.
Musk was booed in San Francisco after Dave Chappelle invited him on stage.
Alex Spiro has represented Musk in several court cases.
As a result of recent layoffs at one of Mr. Musk's companies, a large portion of the jury pool in this District is likely to hold a personal and material bias against him. Negative and inflammatory local publicity surrounding the events has compounded the baseline bias.
The negativity toward Mr. Musk was not limited to the press. There are regular protests and picketing activity in front of Musk's offices in San Francisco.
In the past, Musk and his attorneys have argued that his statements about a possible take-private deal forTesla were not in violation of the law.
According to the CEO, he made a deal with investors from Saudi Arabia to take the company private for $420 per share. Text messages showed that Saudi PIF investors didn't agree to fund a deal.
Four people who helped run the Saudi Public Investment Fund have been subpoenaed by Musk's attorneys to testify.
You can read the filing from the case here.
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