Elon Musk is being sued for $1 million after mistakenly accusing a man of attacking a Pride event

When Neo-Nazis and Proud Boys disrupted a Pride event on June 24, 2023 in Oregon City, transphobic billionaire Elon Musk wrongly used his huge social media following to publicly point out 22-year-old Ben Brody as one of the disruptors — the issue: Brody was not even in the state at the time.

Nevertheless, Musk informed his 180 million followers that Brody was likely a federal agent pretending to be a neo-Nazi in a “false flag situation” in a post that remains active on X. The resulting harassment led Brody and his family to flee their home; now they’re seeking $1 million in damages from Musk in a trial set to begin on April 22.Musk participated in a two-hour deposition for the trial on March 27, and he wanted to keep his testimony sealed from public eyes, but a judge denied his request, and it was made public on Monday.

According to The Huffington Post, during the deposition, Brody’s lawyer informed Musk that the conspiracy theory about Brody came from an X account that “features extreme rightwing memes, neo-Nazi apologia/nostalgia, juvenile and cringe-worthy attempts at bigoted humor, low effort bait tweets, delusional panics over lazy hoaxes, and a cavalcade of absurdly false information.” Musk admitted, “I’m guilty of many self-inflicted wounds…. I wasn’t trying to assess [the post’s] credibility…. 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 told lawyers it was “not a big deal” that his message went out to millions on his social network. Musk also admitted to using a sock puppet account in which he pretended to be his own three-year-old son and write things like, “I wish I was old enough to go to nightclubs. They sound so fun.”

“I may have done more to financially impair the company than to help it,” Musk admitted, “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.”

Musk’s “entertaining” posts, many of which repeat transphobic talking points and neo-Nazi conspiracy theories like the “Great Replacement Theory,”

have caused big-name advertisers to flee the site in droves.

Musk said he doubted his tweet harmed Brody, saying, “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’s site has been blamed for encouraging real-world violence and death threats against LGBTQ+ people. Musk admitted he reposts on his social media network without concern for truth. the “Great Replacement Theory,” have caused big-name advertisers to flee the site in droves.

Musk said he doubted his tweet harmed Brody, saying, “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’s site has been blamed for encouraging real-world violence and death threats against LGBTQ+ people.