Musk, and other current and former Tesla board members, are set to face a jury in a shareholder class action that claims the CEO manipulated Tesla’s stock in 2018 when he tweeted that he was considering taking his electric vehicle company private at $420 per share, and had “funding secured” to do so.In a motion to transfer venue, attorneys representing Tesla and Musk argue that the CEO has garnered extensive and negative publicity in California after taking over a San Francisco-based social media company, Twitter, in October 2022.Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Alex Spiro, who has represented Musk in several court matters, argued in this latest filing: “A substantial portion of the jury pool in this District is likely to hold a personal and material bias against Mr. Musk as a result of recent layoffs at one of his companies as individual prospective jurors—or their friends and relatives—may have been personally impacted.The existing baseline bias has been compounded, expanded, and reinforced by the negative and inflammatory local publicity surrounding the events.”Spiro added in the filing that the “negativity toward Mr. Musk was not isolated to the press.” He said there are regular protests and picketing activity in front of Musk’s offices in San Francisco, adding that some are “endorsed and encouraged by local political figures.”Musk and his attorneys have previously argued that his statements about a possible take-private deal for Tesla in 2018 did not violate the law.Court filings this month in the securities class action show that Musk’s attorneys have subpoenaed four people who help run the Saudi Public Investment Fund to testify in this trial including Naif Al Mogren, Saad Al Jarboa, Turqi Alnowaise and Yasir Al-Rumayyan."