A jury of nine people was chosen for Elon Musk’s trial over claims he defrauded Tesla Inc. investors when he tweeted in 2018 about his plan to take the company private.
(Bloomberg) — A jury of nine people was chosen for Elon Musk’s trial over claims he defrauded Tesla Inc. investors when he tweeted in 2018 about his plan to take the company private.
The judge presiding over the case set opening arguments for Wednesday in San Francisco federal court and told jurors the trial may run until Feb. 3.
There was no shortage of criticism of Musk among prospective jurors who were screened for the case. Musk is “off his rocker,” said one. “He’s talented but crazy,” said another. A third described Musk as “arrogant and unpredictable.”
Some of the comments were from written questionnaires potential jurors filled out before coming to court Tuesday. Others were uttered in live court, as follow-up responses to questions posed by Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, lawyers representing investors in the lawsuit, and US District Judge Edward Chen.
One woman who made it to a final round of 15 before being cut was asked by the judge about her description of the billionaire entrepreneur in the questionnaire as “not a very likeable person,” although she said Tesla’s cars are nice-looking.
Musk is “a bit arrogant and narcissistic” in how he comes off in interviews, the woman said in court. She said she works down the street from Twitter Inc.’s headquarters and her opinion about him mostly stems from how he’s managed the social media company, which he bought in October for $44 billion. Even so, she said, she could fairly judge someone she finds unlikeable.
“Sometimes I don’t like my husband,” she told the court. In the end, she was dismissed.
One man who said on his questionnaire that Musk has “embarrassed himself in engineering circles” was asked by the judge to explain whether, given his comments, he could be fair. He replied that he wasn’t sure how much detail he should go into because, “with Musk, the rabbit hole goes pretty deep.”
“I don’t think it’d be fair to Mr. Musk to have me on the jury,” the man concluded. “There’s also the billionaire factor — I’m not a big fan of those, either.” He was excused.
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