Elon Musk has never been one for restraint, whether it be announcing his latest potential Tesla and Neuralink plans or posting on X, formerly known as Twitter.
But Musk may have taken things a bit too far when he amplified claims that Ben Brody, a 22-year-old Jewish man from California, was an undercover agent in a neo-Nazi group. People online had found that Brody looked similar to an individual involved in a violent clash between rival far-right groups and neo-Nazis protesting a gay pride event near Portland, Oregon, on June 24.
“Looks like one is a college student (who wants to join the govt) and another is maybe an Antifa member, but nonetheless a probable false flag situation,” Musk tweeted a few days later, after engaging with related conspiracy theories.
In October, Brody sued the tech billionaire for defamation; the lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $1 billion and an apology and retraction from Musk. Brody’s lawyer is Mark Bankston, the attorney who successfully sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his false claims related to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
On March 27, Musk sat down for a two-hour deposition with his attorney — Alex Spiro — and Bankston. Multiple emergency motions filed by Spiro to seal the deposition were struck down by a judge and made public Monday. It was first reported by The Huffington Post.
Here are X takeways from the newly-released deposition.
‘Self-inflicted wounds’
Throughout the deposition, Musk acknowledged the impact his X habits have on his company, testifying that he is “guilty of many self-inflicted wounds.”
Since Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion the company’s value has plunged at least 71%, according to mutual fund giant Fidelity. Musk has been criticized for platforming and promoting conspiracy theories on his social media platform.
Dozens of advertisers — including Comcast, Apple, and The Walt Disney Company — pulled their spending on X last November after reports that their companies’ ads were appearing next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech. Last year, the company lost $1.5 billion in ad revenue because of the onslaught of departures. Musk later told advertisers to “go f[*]ck [themselves]” during an interview with the New York Times.
“I may have done more to financially impair the company than to help it, but I certainly I — I do not guide my posts by what is financially beneficial but what I believe is interesting or important or entertaining to the public,” Musk later said after Bankston asked if he used his posts on X to benefit the company.
Musk roleplayed as his toddler
Musk, like many people on social media, has a burner account used for testing and scrolling anonymously. But, the billionaire did things a little differently than most other users.
Although the account is not named in the deposition, Musk seemingly confirmed that he used a burner account. The account @ErmnMusk was first discovered last summer using a photo of X Æ A-12, Musk and Grimes’ two-year-old son often referred to as “X,” and posting in his likeness.
“I will finally turn 3 on May 4th!” read one post, matching the real-life X’s actual birthday, Gizmodo reported. The account also asked MicroStrategy CEO and bitcoin enthusiast Michael Saylor if he liked Japanese girls and replied “I [purple heart emoji] librarians” in response to a tweet sexualizing former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison.
“No, I would not use this account,” Musk said in the deposition. “It was just used for — for testing.” He later repeated the statement, testifying that “I briefly used this account as a test account.”
Fact-checking via crowdsourcing
Musk said he doesn’t use any of his company’s internal tools for fact-checking before he interacts with it, preferring to use X’s Community Notes feature to allow users to correct any inaccurate or baseless claims.
“I think I really did this in good faith, because I would not ask for a fact-check which is what I do by adding Community Notes,” Musk said. In his initial post about Brody he had tagged Community Notes in his post, although such a note was never added.
He has repeatedly touted the success of Community Notes, saying that it requires agreement from people who historically refuse to work with each other. But he has also run afoul of the program himself and argued with Community Notes put on his posts.
Branson also brought up a number of Musk’s past controversies that came about when he promoted conspiracy theories. For example, the attorney asked Musk if he had received advice from friends or family when he replied to a false article related to an attack against Paul Pelosi.
The attorney pointed to Musk’s tweets suggesting the injuries sustained by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband during a home invasion had been caused by a male prostitute he had met at a gay bar. He had cited an article published in the Santa Monica Observer.
“I don’t think I have a growing tendency to read fake news sites,” Musk said during the deposition when asked about a related passage in Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Tesla CEO. “I aspire to read the most accurate information possible.”
Social media rarely has a ‘meaningful negative impact’ on someone’s life
“People are attacked all the time in the media, online media, social media, but it is rare that that actually has a meaningful negative impact on their life,” Musk replied when asked whether he thought his posts had affected Brody.
The Tesla CEO has frequently gotten in trouble for criticizing people online, such as when he called a British diver who helped rescue boys trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand a “pedo.” A jury in Los Angeles later found that Musk did not defame the diver, Vernon Unsworth.
Who’s the plaintiff again?
To give Musk some credit, it must be tough to keep track of the many lawsuits filed against him and his companies over the years; the University of California, Los Angeles even has a class dedicated to this litigation.
At the start of the deposition, Musk was asked if he “did anything wrong to Ben Brody,” to which he replied “I don’t know Ben Brody.” When Bankston asked if he was aware that Brody was suing him, Musk countered that “I think you’re the one suing.”
“I view many cases, and probably this one too, that the real plaintiff is the lawyer seeking money, like you,” Musk said. He later added that, despite having a “limited understanding” of what the lawsuit is about, he thinks “it’s really about” Bankston “getting a lot of money.”
Since the deposition was taken last month, Tesla has reached a settlement with the family of an apple engineer who died in a 2018 crash involving the use of Tesla’s driver assistance program. Two ex-Tesla employees sued the electric vehicle company last week and accused it of committing a series of wage law violations against workers at its flagship factory in Fremont, California.