Judge who owns Tesla stock greenlights X lawsuit against critics

By Adi Robertson , a senior tech and policy editor focused on VR, online platforms, and free expression. Adi has covered video games, biohacking, and more for The Verge since 2011.

A lawsuit aimed at punishing critics of Elon Musk’s X will go forward, thanks to a ruling from a judge with a financial interest in Musk’s success.

On Thursday, Judge Reed O’Connor denied a motion to dismiss X’s lawsuit against Media Matters For America (MMFA). The suit was filed in Texas last year and alleges that MMFA should be held legally liable for negative reporting that caused companies to pull ads from X. O’Connor dismissed objections that it was filed in a state where neither X nor MMFA is headquartered, saying the fact that MMFA “targeted” two X Texas-based advertisers — Oracle and AT&T — by mentioning them in articles and interviews is sufficient. (X is based in California, though its current San Francisco office will soon close and Musk has discussed moving to Texas.)

Unlike your standard libel lawsuit, X doesn’t say MMFA made a factually incorrect claim; it outright admits that X served ads against racist or otherwise offensive content. Instead, it argues that this situation is rare and the authors “deliberately misused the X platform to induce the algorithm to pair racist content with popular advertisers’ brands.” What constitutes misuse of a platform? Using accounts that had been active for more than a month, following the accounts of racists and major brands, and “endlessly scrolling and refreshing” to get new ads. In other words, X isn’t suing MMFA for lying — it’s suing them for seeking out bad things about a business and not reporting those things in a sufficiently positive light.

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