Elon Musk is no stranger to courtroom proceedings, however you wouldn’t know that studying this deposition that was launched Monday. Musk was deposed in a lawsuit over the Tesla CEO falsely tweeting {that a} school child from a special state was secretly a federal agent despatched to disguise himself as a neo-Nazi and begin a combat with the Proud Boys to make conservatives look dangerous.
As Rolling Stone experiences, the case in query includes a 22-year-old Jewish man named Ben Brody. Again in June, a gaggle of Proud Boy thugs acquired right into a combat with members of the neo-Nazi group, the Rose Metropolis Nationalists at Oregon Metropolis’s first Satisfaction Night time Fest, which they confirmed as much as terrorize. Folks have been in a position to start matching names to faces utilizing photos posted on-line. In an try to color the brawl as a “false flag” orchestrated by a federal company, conservative accounts started to falsely declare that Brody was one of many contributors.
Brody wasn’t even in Oregon on the time of the brawl, however that didn’t cease right-wing accounts from claiming he was a federal agent and sharing his private data. Musk replied to 1 tweet, saying, “At all times take away their masks,” and later replied to a separate put up saying, “Seems to be like one is a school pupil (who needs to hitch the govt.) and one other is perhaps an Antifa member, however nonetheless a possible false flag scenario.”
That second reply had greater than one million views, and in the end, the harassment turned so severe that Brody and his household needed to flee their house. He filed go well with in October, and regardless of Musk’s lawyer’s makes an attempt to maintain the deposition confidential, the courtroom launched it to the general public on Monday. And whereas Musk regularly falling for right-wing conspiracy theories is sort of outdated information at this level, he in some way managed to make himself look even worse throughout the deposition.
Musk primarily admitted to all the things Brody alleged in his lawsuit, together with that he by no means appeared for extra data and acquired all the things he thought he knew from these Twitter posts. When requested about whether or not or not he had appeared on the account he replied to with the intention to see their different tweets, Musk stated, “I wasn’t making an attempt to evaluate their credibility.” He additionally claimed that he had “a restricted understanding” of “what the lawsuit is about” and accused Brody’s lawyer of secretly being the one truly suing him to “[get] some huge cash.”
Musk additionally tried to keep away from taking accountability for not vetting the accounts he interacts with, saying that “in case you’re suggesting that with the intention to reply to anybody, it’s important to scroll by means of all their posts, that might make it inconceivable to make use of the system.” He did nevertheless finally say, “I’m responsible of many self-inflicted wounds.”
Different feedback ought to positively have buyers involved, together with Musk saying, “I could have executed extra to financially impair the corporate than to assist it. I don’t information my posts by what’s financially useful however what I imagine is fascinating or essential or entertaining to the general public.” Nothing says “nice funding” fairly just like the proprietor of an organization admitting he’s hurting that firm’s funds.
In an surprising twist, Musk additionally admitted that he was behind an account with the deal with @Ermnmusk that he used to role-play as his three-year-old son, posting issues similar to, “I want I used to be sufficiently old to go to nightclubs. They sound so enjoyable,” and, “Do you want Japanese ladies?” Why a billionaire wished to fake to be a toddler on the web, we will’t say, however it’s positively creepy and bizarre. Then once more, that is Elon Musk we’re speaking about, so creepy and bizarre sort of include the territory.
Musk additionally admitted to having a second burner account that seems to have been misrecorded within the transcript as “child smoke 9,000″ however is almost certainly @babysmurf9000. That one wasn’t as creepy and bizarre because the one the place he pretended to be a toddler, however he did use it to name Mark Cuban an fool, so there may be that.
He additionally claimed that he had no concept that Brody had requested he retract his “false flag” posts and that regardless of tens of millions of followers seeing his posts, he doesn’t agree that Brody “has been meaningfully harmed by this.” In keeping with Musk, it’s “uncommon” for incidents like this one to have “a significant adverse influence” on the victims.
Nice man, that Elon Musk. Actually our greatest and brightest.
