{"id":42828,"date":"2023-10-03T02:07:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T02:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/03\/elon-musk-is-being-sued-for-defamation-after-falsely-claiming-a-man-was-a-neo-nazi-on-x-techcrunch\/"},"modified":"2023-10-03T02:07:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T02:07:30","slug":"elon-musk-is-being-sued-for-defamation-after-falsely-claiming-a-man-was-a-neo-nazi-on-x-techcrunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/03\/elon-musk-is-being-sued-for-defamation-after-falsely-claiming-a-man-was-a-neo-nazi-on-x-techcrunch\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk is being sued for defamation after falsely claiming a man was a neo-Nazi on X | TechCrunch"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Elon Musk has been on something of a suing spree lately<\/a>, but on Monday Twitter\u2019s new owner was hit with a fresh inbound lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit<\/a> alleges that Musk defamed a California man after the owner of X (formerly Twitter) claimed that the recent college graduate was a federal agent operating undercover with a neo-Nazi organization in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n

Members of the group, known as the Rose City Nationalists<\/a>, had their masks removed during a scuffle at an LGBTQ pride event in Oregon. When footage from the event appeared online, some X users incorrectly identified one of men involved in the incident as Benjamin Brody, a 22-year-old who belonged to a Jewish fraternity and previously remarked on the fraternity\u2019s website that he wanted a job with the government.<\/p>\n

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Musk made these ridiculously false and damaging accusations based on a tweet he had seen from an anonymous rightwing extremist Twitter account from the revolting \u201cGroyper\u201d subculture. Musk amplified the accusations for two days before finally defaming Ben himself on June 27th.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mark Bankston (@BankstonAtLaw) October 2, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Musk amplified the false claims on X at the time, describing the incident \u2014 and Brody\u2019s purported involvement \u2014 as a \u201cprobably false flag situation.\u201d When Musk waded into the false conspiracy theory, his massive presence on the platform resulted in a deluge of hate toward Brody. According to the lawsuit, Brody and his family were \u201crepeatedly doxed and suffered an enormous wave of harassment from belligerent strangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo weeks after Musk\u2019s statements, it was apparent to Ben that his reputation had been catastrophically damaged and that a huge number of people believed he was either a neo-Nazi or a provocateur involved in a deceptive \u201cpsyop\u201d to commit political terrorism,\u201d the lawsuit reads.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Musk has been sued for defamation over careless and inflammatory remarks. British cave diver Vernon Unsworth sued Musk for calling him a \u201cpedo guy\u201d during a heated back-and-forth centered on the 2018 rescue operation to save kids trapped in a cave in Thailand. Musk ultimately triumphed in court in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit is being led by Mark Bankston, the same lawyer who famously took Alex Jones to task in court<\/a> after the right-wing media figure spread Sandy Hook conspiracies for years. Jones lost a flurry of defamation cases and ultimately was ordered to pay<\/a> the surviving families of Sandy Hook victims more than a billion dollars in damages.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, I am proud to announce I have filed suit against yet another notorious disseminator of false information: The owner of this platform, Elon Musk,\u201d Bankston wrote in a long thread on X. \u201cMusk will not stop until someone stops him. It seems that responsibility now falls upon a shy 22-year-old whose life has been shaken by Musk\u2019s reckless conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n