Check out more newsletters The jury found Musk liable for some of the fraud claims — but rejected the main allegation, that he conducted a deliberate “scheme” to manipulate Twitter’s stock price. In his Thursday letter, Spiro claimed Musk was deprived of his chosen counsel after plaintiffs’ lawyers indicated they intended to call Spiro himself as a witness — a move that would create a conflict under the advocate-witness rule. The lawyer, of Manhattan-based powerhouse firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said he was forced to step back from a jury-facing role as a result. However, plaintiffs never called him to testify. Musk lawyer Alex Spiro took aim at the venue of the trial, arguing that seating an impartial jury in San Francisco was effectively impossible. Getty Images Spiro also took aim at the venue of the trial, arguing that seating an impartial jury in San Francisco was effectively impossible given widespread negative views of Musk there. “I remained concerned that Mr. Musk would be unable to seat an impartial jury given his notoriety and reputation in the District,” Spiro wrote in the letter. He pointed to comments from Judge Breyer during jury selection — including that “[m]aybe if I went in a different part of the country, I might get a different panel” — as evidence the jury pool was biased. According to the filing, the court was forced to accept jurors with preexisting views because excluding all potentially biased candidates would have made it impractical to seat a panel.