Elon Musks laywer accuses San Francisco jury of bias, points to mocking $4.20 reference in damages

Elon Musk’s lawyer is accusing a San Francisco federal jury of “mocking” the billionaire by including “$4.20” among the figures for recommended damages in a class-action suit that accused the tech titan of misleading Twitter investors.In a Thursday letter to US District Judge Charles Breyer, defense attorney Alex Spiro argued the verdict was “corrupted” by bias and denied his client a fair trial.Spiro is seeking a probe into the matter — to be followed by a motion seeking a ruling in favor of Musk or a new trial.The laywer cited a handwritten verdict form in which jurors listed “$4.20” for one damages entry — written in bright blue ink while the rest of the entries were black.Spiro said the unusual entry was no accident, calling it a deliberate jab at Musk tied to his well-known association with the number 420.“The inescapable conclusion,” the attorney wrote, “is that the jury felt it appropriate to use its verdict to send a message to Mr.Musk.”He accused jurors of injecting “outside influence and noise” into what should have been a neutral deliberation.The number 420 is widely recognized as slang for marijuana and has been part of a running joke by Musk.In 2018, he tweeted he was considering taking Tesla private at “$420” — a post that triggered an SEC fraud case — and later set his Twitter buyout price at $54.20 per share, reinforcing the association.The jury found last week that Musk defrauded investors by intentionally driving down Twitter’s stock price before he acquired it in 2022, later renaming it X.Spiro argued in his letter filed Thursday that the jury wasn’t actually “deciding a securities fraud case” but sending Musk a message.“The jury’s emphasis on the $4.20 number, which had no significance to its damages determination, but appears to be a mocking reference to a number previously associated with Mr.

Musk, shows that the verdict was a mockery of justice: a commentary not on whether Mr.Musk committ...