lon Musk is being sued for defamation within the US, following claims he accused a 22-year-old man of being linked to a Neo-Nazi organisation.
The case was filed in a district court docket in Travis County, Texas on behalf of Ben Brody, as reported by Huffington Publish.
The 60-page submitting is accessible to learn on-line, however Brody’s lawyer Mark Bankston additionally detailed the important thing factors of the case in a Twitter thread.
“In one more instance of his rising tendency to unfold false info, Musk falsely instructed the world there was proof indicating Ben Brody participated in a violent road brawl on behalf of a neo-Nazi extremist group,” Bankston wrote.
The brawl occurred throughout Portland’s Satisfaction occasion, on June 24, nevertheless it was between two far-right teams, the notorious Proud Boys and Rose Metropolis Nationalists, reasonably than these celebrating.
In the course of the combat, two of the activists’ face masks had been eliminated, inflicting these on social media to try to trace down who these individuals had been.
“Based mostly on nothing greater than a passing resemblance between Ben and the unmasked neo-Nazi, an accusation was made,” Bankston says.
A story began to type that this unmasked particular person was a part of a “false flag” operation.
The Elon Musk tweet that the case cites as defamation was posted on June 27, in response to a tweet by the account ZeroHedge, which wrote: “Patriot Entrance ‘White Supremacist’ Unmasked as Suspected Fed.”
Musk replied: “Appears like one is a university scholar (who desires to hitch the govt.) and one other is possibly an Antifa member, however nonetheless a possible false flag state of affairs,” suggesting the combat was a part of a conspiracy motion.
On the time of writing, Musk has not deleted the publish.
The case means that whereas Brody will not be straight named, the context of earlier Musk tweets linking Brody to the occasion makes the intention clear, that he’s the “faculty scholar” cited. This led to waves of social media pile-ons.
“Even aside from the injury to his popularity, Ben and his household had been put by weeks of terror as a consequence of Musk’s recklessness, and now Ben finds himself depressed, freaked out, and mentally distraught on the essential second when he exits faculty and enters his profession path,” Banskton says.
The case is searching for reparations that “will exceed $1,000,000”, in keeping with the submitting.
This isn’t the primary time Elon Musk has been sued for defamation. One of many cave divers concerned within the rescue of trapped Thai schoolchildren sued Musk in 2018 for suggesting he was a paedophile.
Musk referred to as Vernon Unsworth a “pedo man” after the diver mentioned the Tesla CEO’s public provides of assist had been a PR stunt.
The case ended up in Musk’s favour, although, with a US jury returning a unanimous verdict in December 2019.