Elon Musk Didn’t Want His Latest Deposition Released. Here It Is.
HuffPost
Musk is being sued for falsely suggesting a 22-year-old Jewish man was part of a neo-Nazi brawl.
Elon Musk was deposed last month over his role in allegedly promoting a false conspiracy theory that a 22-year-old Jewish man participated in a neo-Nazi brawl.
Musk tried to keep the deposition from going public, and perhaps for good reason: It did not go well for him.
“There’s some risk that what I say is incorrect, but one has to balance that against having a chilling effect on free speech in general, which would undermine the entire foundation of our democracy,” Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), said during the deposition.
The lawsuit against the billionaire, filed in October, alleges that Musk used his colossal social media platform to amplify a false far-right conspiracy theory linking 22-year-old Ben Brody to a brawl in Oregon between the neo-Nazi group Rose City Nationalists and the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist fight club. The brawl occurred during Oregon City’s first Pride Night Fest, when both groups came to disrupt the event and spew anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
Brody wasn’t even in the same state when the June 24 brawl occurred. But his world was turned upside down when far-right X accounts, magnified by Musk, falsely identified him as a member of Rose City Nationalists (and an undercover federal agent) and posted his personal information online.