Elon Musk’s trial: Numerous jurors dismissed due to dislike for the Tesla CEO.

According to Bloomberg Law, the case, currently being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by investors of Twitter (now the X platform). They allege that Musk violated federal securities laws by publicly hesitating for months about acquiring Twitter, with the intention of driving down the stock price before completing the deal in October 2022, causing financial harm to shareholders.

The trial is expected to last about three weeks. Witnesses who may be called include Musk himself and former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.

However, before proceeding to the formal trial, the court must finalize the jury selection – and this is an unusually difficult step.

Judge Charles R. Breyer, appointed under former President Bill Clinton and the younger brother of former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, opened the jury selection process by remarking that Musk is popular “as much as the President of the United States.” He argued that even if you “searched across the country,” it would be nearly impossible to find anyone who didn’t already have a preconceived notion about Musk.

“As a public figure, he elicits very strong opinions, and with him, people often have very clear opinions. The question is whether they can set those opinions aside – and the courts have been very clear on this standard,” Judge Breyer said.

Finding nine jurors who could ensure fairness and objectivity took more than five hours.

Of the 93 people on the list of potential jurors, Judge Breyer immediately eliminated 40 when asked who felt they couldn’t set aside personal biases – and they raised their hands in agreement.

The questionnaires completed by the candidates beforehand revealed that many expressed negative attitudes toward Musk, the companies he owns, or his political activities related to the administration of President Donald Trump, as well as his controversial role in the DOGE initiative.

According to Bloomberg Law, “One jury nominee said he could uphold fairness in a civil case, but if this were a criminal case, he would have a ‘moral obligation’ to convict Musk and send him to jail.”

This person was naturally disqualified. There was also a man who, while claiming to be objective, stated in the questionnaire that he “disagreed with the existence of billionaires.” Another woman was disqualified after expressing outrage over Musk’s mass layoffs of Twitter’s content moderation team.

Stephen Broome, one of Musk’s lawyers, complained in court that there were “too many people” on the jury list who “hate him so much that we’ve become numb.”

He added that typically, if a candidate writes on the questionnaire that they “hate” the defendant, they will be immediately disqualified without question. The trial is scheduled to officially begin on March 2nd.