A trial once morest Elon Musk, accused by investors of having written a fraudulent tweet, is due to open on Tuesday in San Francisco, following the refusal on Friday of the request by the Tesla boss’s lawyers to transfer the case out of California. The case dates back to 2018.
Elon Musk said in a tweet that he had sufficient funding to take Tesla out of the stock market, a message that had caused the stock to fluctuate strongly for a few days. On August 10, a complaint was filed once morest the entrepreneur, for having “artificially manipulated the price of Tesla’s stock in order to completely ruin investors”, who are betting on the drop in price.
Four and a half years later, the last barrier to holding a trial seems to have been lifted. A judge has refused to transfer the prosecution to Texas, the US state where Elon Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters, and jury selection is due to begin on Tuesday.
Sanctioned by the SEC
The defense argued that the multi-billionaire might not benefit from an impartial trial in San Francisco, where he bought Twitter in late October and was widely criticized for his decisions regarding the social network.
In a previous ruling related to the case, the judge ruled that the infamous 2018 tweet might be considered ‘false and misleading’. The short message from the boss of Tesla has already earned him numerous disputes with the authorities.
The American stock market policeman, the SEC, considering that Elon Musk had not provided proof of his financing, had also filed a complaint at the time. The regulator then forced him to hand over the chairmanship of Tesla’s board of directors, pay a $20 million fine, and later demanded that his tweets directly related to Tesla’s business be pre-approved by a competent lawyer.
Elon Musk tried once more in the spring to invalidate this decision, in vain.
/ATS
