Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins/Futurism. Source: Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images
It turns out that being one of the most despised people in America has some downsides, too.
As Elon Musk prepares to stand trial in San Francisco federal court for allegedly manipulating Twitter’s stock, his legal team is finding that it is very difficult to find impartial jurors who don’t “hate” the billionaire’s guts, according to them. new reporting From Courthouse News.
Judge Charles R. Breyer had to carefully present the puzzle to more than 90 potential jurors.
“Mr. Musk, whatever your opinion of Twitter or Tesla, can you put it aside in the sense that you will evaluate the defendants solely based on the evidence and the law presented at this trial and the law, as I lay it to you?” As cited by the outlet, Judge Breyer asked the potential jury pool.
One particular lightning rod was Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration. musk Donated nearly $300 million to Trump’s presidential campaignand led the administration’s effort to dismantle the federal government through a pet project of Musk’s, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Breyer stressed, “Even if you have strong views on the presidency, this is not the platform where it is expressed.” “Whatever views you may have about the presidency, they should not influence your views on this matter.”
According to reporting, more than a third of potential jurors said they could not remain impartial and the judge dismissed them. Others who were not dismissive, but clearly stressed that they could still remain impartial, admitted that their opinion of Musk was also extremely negative.
This angered Musk’s legal team. His attorney Stephen Broome considered it insulting that the court was potentially allowing jurors who had a low opinion of his client. If it were any other defendant and the juror said, “I hate that man and he has no moral compassion,” Broome argued, then that juror would be dismissed.
Judge Breyer wasn’t buying it. He reminded Broome that jurors are allowed to have personal opinions on public figures, which Musk is. “He is a public figure and as a public figure, he will excite views, strong views,” the judge said. “The question is whether they can keep them separate or not.”
The trial, which is scheduled to begin on March 2 and last until March 16, relates to allegations that Musk manipulated Twitter’s stock price when closing a $44 billion deal to buy the social media site, which was later renamed X and now improperly changed to SpaceX. (That figure was widely seen as ridiculously overpriced; the company had revenues of only several billion dollars and had been making losses in recent years.)
The plaintiffs argue that Musk did this by intentionally making misleading statements about the platform. In May 2022, Musk Tweeted Told its millions of followers that the deal was “on hold” pending calculations that “spam/fake accounts actually represent less than 5 percent of users,” suggesting that the percentage may actually be higher. Twitter’s stock fell nine percent the next day.
If that could be interpreted as an honest mistake, what happened next was a shameless double dip. A few days later, Musk claimed that bots and spam accounts made up an even larger 20 percent of Twitter’s user base, and demanded that Twitter show evidence that it was less than the initial five percent claim. Critics at the time saw it as Musk looking for an excuse to back out of the dubious $44 billion deal he had already agreed to, or crashing Twitter’s stock in order to close the deal at a lower price. Of the latter possibility, Musk said at that time Renegotiating the deal at a lower price was not “out of the question”.
The trial will proceed without nine jurors and no alternates, according to Courthouse News.
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