A federal judge threw out Elon Musk’s lawsuit against the Center For Countering Digital Hate, which documented the increase of racist, antisemitic, and extremist content on the website formerly known as Twitter following the Tesla founder’s acquisition of the site. U.S. district judge Charles Beyer Musk, dismissed the lawsuit — brought by the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” and Zambian emerald mining heir — pursuant to California’s anti-Slapp law designed to protect the exercise of free speech from bad-faith attacks.
“Today’s decision proves that even the world’s wealthiest man cannot bend the rule of law to his will,” CCDH attorney Roberta Kaplan told reporters.
“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” wrote Charles Breyer, the US district judge, in the ruling. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the defendants for their speech.” (The Guardian)Washington Post $, AP, NPR, New Republic, The Globe and Mail, Variety, The Hill, Wall Street Journal $, Forbes, NBC, CNN, Deadline, FT $, Reuters, Bloomberg Law, AFP, New York Times $, Axios)