The actual
Musk promises to go thermonuclear.
Elon Musk has said he will be filing a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters and others, after major US companies paused their adverts on his social media site over concerns about antisemitism.
The media watchdog Media Matters said earlier this week that it found corporate advertisements by IBM, Apple, Oracle and Comcast’s Xfinity were being placed alongside antisemitic content, including that praising Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
The result was a lot of big advertisers leaving Musk’s social media site.
“The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” Musk said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Colluded? I can’t wait to see what evidence he has for that and how he distinguishes it from just doing what people do on social media.
Musk on Wednesday agreed with a post on X that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user, who referenced the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, was speaking “the actual truth”.
Yes but what he meant by that was [insert long opaque explanation here].
The White House joined the outcry against Musk’s tweet on Friday, with a statement calling it an “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate” that runs against our core values as Americans”.
Referring to the 7 October attacks by Hamas against Israel, the White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said: “It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie … one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
How many months should he wait?
Quite a few people have pointed out that Musk needn’t wait until court opens on Monday to file his lawsuit. Court filings are done electronically these days. He can file it now with the push of a button.
Maybe he could get some tech bro to help him with this…
@Ophelia:
Just in case anyone is actually unsure of the intended meaning (rather than pretending to be), I’ll attempt a non-opaque explanation:
1) “Critical Social Justice” (and its offspring “Critical Race Theory” and its popular implementation in DEI policies and the works of diAngelo and Kendi) labels white people as “oppressors” and demonises “whiteness” as toxic.
2) Many left-leaning Jewish Americans (though certainly not all) have promoted or gone along with the above, and are part of why it is now hugely influential in American education and other American institutions.
3) But CRT/DEI is not in Jewish people’s interests (particularly not as it demonises notions of merit and success).
4) Since Oct 7, Jewish people have found themselves demonised by the CRT/DEI-supporting left (“colonialist”, “oppressors”), just as “whiteness” has been for a decade now.
5) Left-leaning Jewish groups have tended to support minority groups such as blacks and Muslims (and thus been pro-immigration, for example Soros), seeing them as fellow beleaguered minorities; but this sentiment is often not reciprocated, as is clear post Oct 7.
Those are the sentiments of the poster who Musk replied to and of Musk himself. None of them is anti-Semitic or a “conspiracy theory” . All of them are indeed true and are reasonable things to say.
This falls pretty squarely into the performative litigation category – a favourite of the right these days. As Musk knows full well in the US (having successfully defended calling a decent person a pedophile) proving defamation, especially against a public figure is pretty damn difficult. Of course if he files in a State without SLAPP protections the process is the punishment. Maybe he’ll try going for some non-defamation claim instead? Conspiracy to commit fraud, or interference with inter-state commerce or something? Whatever. He created the cess pit, now he can enjoy sleeping in it.
And here’s Popehats take on it. Note the Musk apologists leaning into the fraud theory. Gid they’re predictable.
https://open.substack.com/pub/popehat/p/my-free-speech-means-you-have-to?
Thanks, great piece.