Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and Twitter, is due to appear in a California court on Tuesday for manipulating the stock markets with an allegedly misleading tweet in 2018.
A court spokesman said Friday that federal judge Edward Chen rejected Musk’s request to move the trial from San Francisco to the state of Texas, where Musk has since moved Tesla’s headquarters. Jury selection begins on Tuesday.
In early August 2018, Musk caused a stir with a message on Twitter that he was considering delisting the electric car manufacturer and that funding for this was “secure”. The unconventional announcement caused turmoil on the stock markets; Tesla shares rose nearly eleven percent, after which the New York Stock Exchange temporarily suspended trading in the newspaper.
A few weeks later, Musk backed out, announcing that staying public was the “better way for Tesla.” A lawsuit has been filed against Musk for “artificially manipulating” the price of Tesla stock to harm investors who had bet on a falling share price.
Musk’s lawyers had justified the call to move the trial to Texas, as public opinion in San Francisco turned against him over his purchase of Twitter and the subsequent spate of layoffs from the online service. Local media outlets have published “biased and negative reports” about Musk in recent months, and local politicians such as the mayor of San Francisco have spoken out against the entrepreneur.
According to the Bloomberg news agency, Judge Chen refuted these arguments, saying Musk also had “many fans” in San Francisco. The composition of an impartial jury is quite possible. In an earlier decision, the federal judge had said Musk’s tweet could be considered “false and misleading.”
Musk has already had a lot of trouble from the American authorities because of the tweet. The Securities and Exchange Commission forced him to relinquish his position as chairman of Tesla’s board of directors in 2018, requiring Musk’s tweets directly related to Tesla to be reviewed by an attorney before being published. In addition, Musk and the electric car company each had to pay a $20 million fine. Last spring, Musk unsuccessfully tried to overturn the SEC’s decision.
(sda/afp)
Source: Watson
I’m Ella Sammie, author specializing in the Technology sector. I have been writing for 24 Instatnt News since 2020, and am passionate about staying up to date with the latest developments in this ever-changing industry.
On the same day of the terrorist attack on the Krokus City Hall in Moscow,…
class="sc-cffd1e67-0 iQNQmc">1/4Residents of Tenerife have had enough of noisy and dirty tourists.It's too loud, the…
class="sc-cffd1e67-0 iQNQmc">1/7Packing his things in Munich in the summer: Thomas Tuchel.After just over a year,…
At least seven people have been killed and 57 injured in severe earthquakes in the…
The American space agency NASA would establish a uniform lunar time on behalf of the…
class="sc-cffd1e67-0 iQNQmc">1/8Bode Obwegeser was surprised by the earthquake while he was sleeping. “It was a…