Elon Musk has proven he can dish out lawsuits in addition to he fights them.
Musk and his corporations have filed at the very least 23 lawsuits in federal courts alone since July of 2023, a Fortune evaluation of federal court docket information reveals. Mixed with state fits, Musk, Tesla, X, and SpaceX have sued opponents, start-ups, legislation corporations, watchdog teams, people, the state of California, federal companies, and popstar Grimes, who’s the mom of three of his youngsters.
Musk has been so legally aggressive that one choose determined his litigation was extra about revenge than justice: “This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech,” the choose stated.
In interviews with Fortune, legislation professors who’ve studied Musk stated the lawsuits show a combative, usually retaliatory strategy towards litigation. In circumstances in opposition to small nonprofits which have criticized his content material moderation insurance policies on X, in addition to fits in opposition to the Division of Justice and Nationwide Labor Relations Board regarding his remedy of workers, Musk often goes on the offensive when his enterprise practices are challenged by outsiders.
Angela Aneiros, a legislation professor at Gonzaga College, instructed Fortune the fits Musk has filed are fueled by the billionaire’s wealth and affect. Musk “isn’t dissuaded by losing,” she stated, and he has the sources to litigate, enchantment, and relitigate disputes till he wins.
“[Musk and his companies] are bringing these lawsuits to punish whoever he’s suing for criticizing him or pointing out the truth,” Aneiros stated. “He’s just like, ‘I want to punish you, and I have the ability to do that.’”
X, SpaceX, and the legislation corporations representing Musk in federal circumstances didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
A few of the complaints Musk has introduced are centered round defending his enterprise pursuits. After California handed a legislation forcing social media corporations to publish their insurance policies round policing hate speech and disinformation, X sued the state on the grounds the legislation violated free speech protections. Tesla, which is listed as a plaintiff in additional federal circumstances than every other Musk firm (12), alleged in a go well with this summer time that one among its suppliers misappropriated commerce secrets and techniques. The defendant, Matthews Worldwide Corp., referred to as the grievance meritless and “a new tactic in their ongoing efforts to bully Matthews.”
Others seem extra private. In 2023, X sued a distinguished Wall Avenue legislation agency employed by Twitter’s earlier administration the 12 months prior after Musk tried to again out of his settlement to buy the corporate. The go well with alleged Twitter’s $90 million fee to the agency was an “unjust enrichment,” and that the agency “took funds from the company cash register while the keys were being handed over.” The legislation agency has denied X’s claims. The case stays open and a choose has dominated the dispute needs to be despatched to arbitration. In one other submitting final September, Musk sued Grimes (actual title Claire Boucher) to determine a parent-child relationship with their three youngsters. Grimes has filed her personal custody go well with in opposition to Musk in California, and the case was sealed in December.
X Corp. and promoting
X, Musk’s most up-to-date enterprise enterprise, has been the billionaire’s most controversial car for litigation within the final 12 months. Since July of 2023, the corporate has filed at the very least seven federal lawsuits on a spread of disputes. Most have been associated to X’s content material moderation insurance policies and advert income.
Final August, the corporate sued the Heart for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a watchdog group working to cease on-line hate speech, after they launched a report claiming that, below Musk, Twitter had reinstated accounts of “neo-Nazis, white supremacists, misogynists and spreaders of dangerous conspiracy theories.”
X responded with a grievance of its personal which accused CCDH of scraping information off the location—a breach of its phrases of service—and alleged that the watchdog group’s report had price the corporate “tens of millions of dollars” in advert income.
Musk’s go well with, filed in federal court docket within the Northern District of California, was thrown out by Choose Charles Breyer, who wrote in his resolution that, regardless of what X claimed in its grievance, the center of the lawsuit was about “punishing the Defendants for their speech.”
“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” Breyer wrote. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance.”
However even because the case in opposition to CCDH was dismissed unequivocally, Musk and X have continued to convey litigation in opposition to teams who’ve raised considerations concerning the firm’s moderation insurance policies and disrupted the platform’s advert income.
In November, X sued the liberal advocacy group Media Issues after it revealed a report alleging the social media website had positioned advertisements for manufacturers like IBM, Oracle, and Apple subsequent to posts idealizing Hitler and the Nazis, inflicting a number of the sponsors to pause their promoting. The nonprofits president has referred to as the lawsuit “frivolous” and has stood behind its reporting.
Simply this month, Musk declared “war” on an promoting group often called GARM, accusing the nonprofit in a contemporary lawsuit of violating antitrust legal guidelines by colluding with a gaggle of manufacturers to tug advert spending from X after Musk acquired it in 2022. The court docket has issued summons to the defendants named within the grievance. In response to the go well with, GARM’s dad or mum group, the World Federation of Advertisers, which can be named within the grievance, introduced it was discontinuing this system as a result of restricted sources.
“GARM is a small, not-for-profit initiative,” the group stated in a press release. “Recent allegations that unfortunately misconstrue its purpose and activities have caused a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances.” The group has not but filed a response in court docket.
Musk can be personally bankrolling a go well with in opposition to Disney—which paused promoting on X final 12 months—introduced by former Mandalorian actress Gina Carano over her termination. Disney has claimed First Modification protections and the case is headed for trial in 2025.
“He wants the best of both worlds,” Aneiros instructed Fortune. “He wants to be able to say whatever he wants to say, and he wants some ruling to say that [other] companies can’t do anything, because it’s free speech.”
“If he can get past a motion to dismiss and extend litigation, a lot of these [groups] that he’s suing … they don’t have the power to continue to fight,” Aneiros stated. “That is really, really concerning to me. Musk can bring these baseless lawsuits, he has these unlimited funds, and rather than fight it these companies will just shut down.”
GARM isn’t the one nonprofit that has been outgunned by the billionaire. Media Issues introduced in Might they have been pressured to layoff greater than a dozen workers members, partially as a result of the price of the authorized battle with Musk. CCDH’s present web site features a hyperlink to donate together with a observe that claims “fighting against Elon Musk’s lawsuit has cost us thousands of dollars and delayed our work to hold social media giants accountable.”
Discussion board purchasing
A part of the explanation Musk seems unaffected by prior authorized defeats could also be as a result of his ways have modified.
Just lately, some authorized consultants have accused the billionaire of “forum shopping”—the observe by which litigants select courts or jurisdictions which are most definitely to present them favorable ruling—and one choose in Texas appears to have turn into a selected favourite.
Whereas the CCDH go well with was filed in California, X introduced the Media Issues case earlier than U.S. choose Reed O’Connor in Fort Price, though neither celebration is predicated in Texas. O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, is a contributor to the Federalist Society who has handed down favorable rulings for conservatives previously. His most up-to-date monetary disclosures present he’s invested between $15,001 and $50,000 in Tesla inventory.
As with CCDH, Media Issues filed a movement to dismiss X’s case in opposition to it, however O’Connor has allowed the discovery course of to start.
Aneiros instructed Fortune the Media Issues case was one of many lawsuits Musk is concerned in that she is watching most intently.
“It has the potential to force companies not to say things because they don’t want to get sued if they criticize X or Musk,” she stated. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in that case. I don’t think it should be any different than the CCDH case, but because it’s in front of that other judge, we’ll see what happens with that one.”
Till lately, O’Connor was presiding over the case in opposition to advertisers as nicely, however recused himself on August 13. Though the choose gave no cause for his recusal, the announcement got here shortly after NPR revealed a report highlighting his Tesla investments.
O’Connor’s workplace didn’t reply to Fortune’s requests for remark.
SpaceX and employment disputes
Fort Price isn’t the one favorable jurisdiction Musk has present in Texas.
In August, 2023, the DOJ filed a grievance in opposition to SpaceX alleging the corporate routinely discriminated in opposition to refugees and asylum seekers in its hiring course of. In response to the go well with Musk referred to as the grievance “a weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes”, and in September the rocket and satellite tv for pc maker hit again with a lawsuit of its personal in Brownsville, Texas.
Within the go well with, SpaceX complained that the method for appointing administrative judges who hear circumstances involving employment bias in opposition to immigrants was unconstitutional. U.S. district choose Rolando Olvera, a Trump appointee, backed the corporate’s declare, suspending the DOJ case in opposition to SpaceX.
Joan MacLeod Heminway, a legislation professor on the College of Tennessee, instructed Fortune that Musk has taken a conservative view on the ability of federal companies and their skill to manage companies.
“I think the advice of counsel that he’s getting is that there are some openings for those kinds of lawsuits now,” Heminway stated. “We’re in a very dynamic stage—especially when it comes to government lawsuits—with respect to federal agencies and how much power they should have.”
It’s a technique SpaceX has employed greater than as soon as, and the corporate has fought tooth and nail to maintain different circumstances in Texas. After the U.S. Labor Relations Board accused the rocket maker of illegally firing workers, SpaceX filed a go well with in opposition to the NLRB a day later, once more calling into query the constitutionality of the federal government company’s construction. Just like the DOJ go well with, the grievance was filed in Brownsville.
This time although, Choose Olvera dominated the case needed to be transferred to California, the place the occasions that triggered the go well with occurred.
In a posh string of authorized motions SpaceX then appealed to a U.S. circuit court docket twice to have the switch reconsidered. The appeals court docket lastly granted the corporate a brief block on the NLRB case in Might. The case continues to be in Brownsville, although the NLRB has been given approval to maneuver to switch it to California.
In actual fact, the corporate filed a second go well with in opposition to the NLRB within the spring on the identical problem, this time in Waco, Texas, below one other Trump appointee, Choose Alan Albright. Underneath a standing order, all non-patent civil circumstances in Waco are assigned to Albright (Olvera, in Brownsville, will get 50% of civil circumstances). Albright granted SpaceX a brief block on the NLRB case in July.
“He doesn’t like losing, and if he loses based on a current rule, he’s going to challenge the rule,” Heminway instructed Fortune. “Or he’s going to challenge the ruling if it’s not made by the highest authority in the land.”
Elon Musk’s private authorized battles
In private authorized battles, Musk has proven an equal dedication to see issues by means of. Earlier this 12 months, the billionaire filed a go well with in opposition to OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman. Musk, who co-founded the startup, and has since launched his personal AI enterprise, accused OpenAI of abandoning its mission to develop synthetic intelligence for the good thing about humanity slightly than for revenue.
This summer time, Musk withdrew the go well with, filed in San Francisco’s Superior Court docket, in the future earlier than a choose was ready to listen to OpenAI’s movement to dismiss the case. However on Aug. 5 Musk doubled down with a brand new grievance.
In contrast to the earlier grievance, the brand new case has been filed in federal court docket. The federal case allowed Musk’s lawyer Marc Toberoff to incorporate allegations of civil racketeering, whose go well with argues that OpenAI and Altman conspired to defraud the billionaire, who made investments within the start-up on the idea the product can be open-sourced.
“OpenAI was Sam Altman’s Trojan Horse,” Toberoff instructed Fortune in a press release. “This lawsuit at its core holds Defendants accountable for their intentional misrepresentations to Elon Musk and to the public.”
In response to the preliminary go well with, OpenAI revealed emails it stated have been despatched by Musk in 2018 suggesting the start-up ought to turn into a part of Tesla, and stated Musk understood early on that OpenAI’s mission didn’t indicate open-sourcing.
“As we said about Elon’s initial legal filing, which was subsequently withdrawn, Elon’s prior emails continue to speak for themselves,” a spokesperson for OpenAI, instructed the Washington Submit after the second go well with was filed.
“He basically is just not afraid of suing on any grounds,” Heminway stated. “I’m not saying he disregards the law, but he really does like to push the envelope on the law. He’ll listen to legal advice, and then he does what he wants, and then somebody has to clean up the mess, from a lawyering perspective afterward. And even if he loses the case, he doesn’t seem to care.”
