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Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Crackerjack legal genius Elon Musk already blundered his way into spending $44 billion to run Twitter into the ground. Now he’s back, firing off legal threats to the Anti-Defamation League for defaming him for “falsely accusing [the platform] & me of being anti-Semitic.”
Even though both are entirely non-defamatory opinion claims.
Defamation generally requires (1) publication of a statement of fact that is (2) false and (3) causes some defamatory harm.
Musk, who is “pro free speech,” is decidedly anti free speech that points out his reform of Twitter’s rules resulted in “both an increase in antisemitic content on the platform and a decrease in the moderation of antisemitic posts.” Which is a factual claim by the ADL, but one that also seems to be not false, posing a fatal problem for Musk’s threatened lawsuit. And that’s before reaching the issue that the implication — or even an explicit statement — that this means Twitter (or X or whatever the hell it is) and Musk are anti-Semitic would be an opinion claim that cannot form the basis of a defamation suit.
This all came up after X users got #BanTheADL trending on the platform and Musk jumped in to ask if he should run a poll on the question. Apparently this was all the hook Musk needed to assert that:
Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!
I’ll take “things that never happened for $400, Ken.” Revenue is definitely down, but it’s down because X is descending into a Stromfront comment board. To the extent departing advertisers have mentioned ADL at all, it’s to flag ADL as merely one of many messengers pointing to troubling data about the platform.
But you can’t shoot the messenger and you definitely can’t say the messenger defamed you for carrying the message.
On the other hand, an entity absolutely can — in certain states — sue someone for using bogus legal threats in an attempt to silence the speaker through intimidation.
There’s no way to predict whether the ADL will offer the anti-SLAPP “FO” to Musk’s “FA,” but it’s still probably a good reason why Musk should consult lawyers before spouting off more often, huh?
Elon Musk threatens to sue Anti-Defamation League over antisemitism claims [CBS]
Earlier: Twitter Complaint Demonstrates That Every Lawyer, Everywhere, Always Is Smarter Than Elon Musk
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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