Elon Musk denies knowing who’s suing him to dodge defamation suit

After Elon Musk was accused of defaming Ben Brody—a 22-year-old Jewish man falsely linked to a neo-Nazi brawl in tweets that Musk responded to last year—the owner of X (formerly Twitter) sat for a heated Zoom deposition where he repeatedly denied ever knowing who Brody was. When Brody's attorney, Mark Bankston, asked Musk if he thought he ever did anything "wrong" to Brody, Musk replied, "I don't know Ben Brody." "You're aware that Ben Brody is somebody who's sued you, right?" Bankston asked. "I think you're the one suing," Musk said, adding that he views "many cases and probably this one too that the real plaintiff is the lawyer seeking money like you." Continually, Musk emphasized, "what I think" the defamation case is "really about is about you getting a lot of money." Musk filed a motion to dismiss Brody's case in January, accusing Brody of targeting "Musk’s exercise of his freedom of speech for the improper purpose of obtaining a payment 'exceed[ing] $1,000,000,' to which Brody is not entitled from Musk." In the deposition, Musk accused Bankston of attacking his free speech rights, and in the motion to dismiss, Musk argued that "the public’s discussion of the identity of perpetrators of crime would be unduly trampled by the fear of liability for merely negligent speech," if Brody won his defamation suit. In that petition, Musk accused Brody of targeting him because he's a billionaire, repeatedly pointing out that Brody had not sued other X users who had specifically named Brody as an alleged brawler in blogs and on X. Musk's tweet, the motion to dismiss argued, only claimed that a picture of one brawler "looks like" a "college student (who wants to join the govt)." Because the photo was not actually of Brody, Musk argued, and because he never names Brody, then Brody cannot claim he was defamed. "It is not defamatory to say someone looks like someone else—that is not an accusation of a crime," Musk's motion to dismiss said. But Bankston asked Musk in the deposition if "the reason that you're saying that it looks like one is a college student" was because of other posts that Musk had seen where right-wing influencers had named Brody as involved in the brawl, describing him as a liberal college student studying political science. "That's probably why I'm saying this," Musk confirmed, while arguing that he was obviously "speculating" in the tweet, which is why he tagged Community Notes to "fact-check" his own tweet. "I can see a picture of my brother and say that looks like my brother, but it might not be my brother," Musk argued. Bankston told Musk that his X post garnered more than a million views, asking Musk, "Do you think you owed it to Ben Brody to be accurate as you could?" Musk told Bankston that he aspires "to be accurate no matter who the person is," suggesting that while it's possible to be harmed by people posting false information, he did not think Brody was harmed by his tweet. "I don't think he has been meaningfully harmed by this," Musk said, insisting to Bankston that he could not have defamed Brody because "I have no ill will to Ben Brody. I don't know Ben Brody." Brody's complaint alleged that Musk boosting a post linking him to the neo-Nazi brawl has caused permanent reputational damage and severe emotional harm. Bankston declined Ars' request to comment on whether Brody continues to be a target for harassment and death threats. "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 said. Brody has asked Musk to delete his post, but Musk claims he cannot recall ever being asked. In one of the few times when Alex Spiro, Musk's attorney, advised Musk not to respond, Musk gave no answer when Bankston asked, "If you knew right now—knowing right now Ben is really upset that this tweet is still up and that he wanted there to be a retraction, how do you feel about that?" Bankston also confirmed that Musk's post never got fact-checked by Community Notes and thus appears to still be boosting the misinformation.

Musk admits his posts financially impaired X

Musk's deposition is a painful read, with Bankston and Spiro continually trading barbs as Spiro attempts to limit the scope of the deposition. Spiro claims early on that "this isn't like a real case," suggesting the suit is "stupid," and Musk tells Bankston, "I've rarely met a lawyer with less decorum than you, if you could be called a lawyer." Throughout, Spiro asks Bankston to stop "yelling," while Musk repeatedly urges Bankston to "calm yourself." At one point, Bankston expresses feeling "disturbed" by the exchanges, and as if tensions weren't heightened enough by the circumstances, because it's all going down on Zoom, there are also moments when the Internet cuts in and out or Musk drops off the call. In the end, however, Spiro mostly allowed Musk to say whatever he wanted, a strategy that seemingly didn't work out so well. At the end of the deposition, Spiro requested that the transcript be confidential, but he ultimately failed to secure that protective order. It's unclear what exactly was so problematic about the deposition that prompted Spiro to push for the transcript to be confidential. But near the end of the deposition, Spiro accused Bankston of "teasing out" Musk's response that he had no "ill will" to Brody. Bankston also seemed to trip Musk up when discussing whether Musk's X account should be considered a personal account or perhaps a business account that benefits X's bottom line. Bankston started by asking Musk if prior to his acquisition, Twitter received a "free benefit" from Musk driving engagement on the platform as one of its top influencers. "Essentially, yes," Musk agreed. But when Bankston then pivoted to ask if "after the acquisition," Musk "personally" benefits "from the engagement" that he creates because X is his company, Spiro tried to stop Musk from responding, demanding to know how the question was relevant, since obviously Musk owns X. Seemingly getting the response he wanted, Bankston explained that "if you're willing to just go ahead and stipulate he is the owner of Twitter, that is not a purely personal account, that account also advances the interest of the company, we're done, and I won't have to ask any more questions." Ultimately, Spiro allowed Musk to answer that X is "not necessarily" benefiting from his posts. Musk admitted that he was sometimes guilty of "self-inflicted wounds," telling Bankston that with his controversial posts, "I may have done more to financially impair the company than to help it, but 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." According to Musk, if his goal was to spike engagement by replying to tweets about Brody, he would have made a separate post rather than simply replying. Musk claimed that replies are "low-visibility" posts, getting somewhere between 100 to 1,000 times less attention than his own posts get. "In this specific case, if I wanted to have it… receive a lot of distribution, I would have made it a primary tweet or a quoted tweet, which I did not," Musk told Bankston. "It was simply a reply. The replies get 100 times less attention than a primary tweet. So this was certainly not any attempt to generate advertising revenue. In fact, generally advertisers will not want to advertise with content that is contentious." A quick scroll through Musk's feed seems to confirm that where his most recent posts garnered anywhere from 1 to 21 million impressions, his most recent replies typically garner between 8,000 and 100,000. Further, Musk argued that a million views on a reply isn't a big deal, because X posts receive "something on the order of five to eight trillion views per year." Bankston has asked the court to order sanctions over what he described as Spiro's "unprofessional behavior," including allegations that Spiro "continually interrupted the deposition with commentary, gave numerous improper instructions not to answer, berated opposing counsel, insulted plaintiff’s claims, mocked counsel’s questions, and attempted to derail damaging testimony." It's unlikely that Brody will comment on the case until the court rules on Musk's motion to dismiss, but his complaint made clear that even if Musk did delete the posts or apologize, for Brody, the damage has already been done. "The reality is that too many powerful people with enormous audiences are being reckless with their accusations against private people," Brody's complaint said. "The damage they cause is not easily repaired by apologies or counter-speech, no matter how persuasive. Repair of reputations, compensation for harm, and effective deterrence can only occur in courts." This post was updated to add Mark Bankston's sanctions request.