A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed Elon Musk’s lawsuit against a nonprofit organization accusing him of allowing hate speech to proliferate on his social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said Musk’s Mr. , said it was “clear” that he had filed a complaint against the center.
“Company X brought this lawsuit to punish CCDH for CCDH’s publications that criticized Company X, and perhaps to deter others who may wish to participate in such criticism.” Breyer wrote.
“It is impossible to read the complaint and not conclude that Company X is far more concerned about CCDH’s speech than its data collection methods,” Breyer wrote in his 52-page decision.
In a statement, X said it plans to appeal.
The decision is a blow to Musk. 3rd richest person in the worldhe has long described himself as a champion of free speech.
But since paying Twitter Inc. $44 billion in October 2022, he has faced widespread criticism for firing scores of people who policed misinformation and for condoning more harmful and abusive posts. It has faced criticism from civil rights groups.
Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center to Combat Digital Hate, said in a statement that Breyer’s decision affirms the group’s right “to hold social media companies accountable for the decisions they make behind closed doors.”
Roberta Kaplan, an attorney for the nonprofit group, said the ruling shows Musk “cannot bend the rule of law to his will.”
Musk and Mr. This includes vendors who do.
Separately, Musk’s electric car maker Tesla has filed multiple lawsuits alleging it tolerated harassment of workers. The company denied those claims.
X violated its 2019 User Agreement by scraping and curating data to create false and misleading reports that Musk had turned X into a haven for hate speech, extremism, and misinformation. The center was criticized for this.
According to a complaint filed by X last July, the nonprofit orchestrated a “scare campaign” to drive away advertisers, causing tens of millions of dollars in damages.
Mr. X had argued that the nonprofit was bound by Mr. Musk’s policy changes and could have left Twitter if he didn’t like them.
Breyer agreed that X’s desire to silence criticism was “perfectly reasonable from a business perspective.”
But he said the nonprofit could not have predicted when it signed the deal with Twitter that Mr. Musk would eventually take over and loosen the way it controls user content.
Breyer also rejected X’s claims against the European Climate Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in The Hague, Netherlands that promotes efforts to mitigate climate change.
X had accused it of colluding with the Center for the Prevention of Digital Hate to illegally collect data.
ECF attorney Nathaniel Buck said the nonprofit group is grateful for the dismissal of Musk’s “frivolous” lawsuit.
Musk’s own speeches have also often drawn complaints.
In November 2023, Musk backed an anti-Semitic post on X that accused members of the Jewish community of inciting hatred against white people, saying users were telling the “actual truth.” .
Musk denies being anti-Semitic and has sought redemption, including visiting Auschwitz, the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland, in January.
