A recent college graduate who became the target of a bizarre Twitter-based conspiracy theory this summer is suing Elon Musk for defamation, after Musk appeared to endorse the hoax.
Ben Brody, 22, claims his life was upended in June when right-wing accounts falsely identified him as a participant in a neo-Nazi brawl in Oregon. Musk amplified those false allegations, repeating them days after people told him that Brody was uninvolved with the group. Brody’s lawsuit, first reported by HuffPost, is being argued by Mark Bankston, an attorney who successfully sued InfoWars founder Alex Jones on behalf of parents of Sandy Hook victims.
Jones had wrongly claimed the Sandy Hook massacre was a “false flag”: a hoax staged to trick Americans into supporting gun laws. Musk, who has downplayed far-right extremism on Twitter and elsewhere, wrongly suggested that Brody’s alleged involvement in the neo-Nazi brawl meant that the event was also “a probable false flag situation.”
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The fight was not a “false flag” but a real slap-fight between two feuding far-right groups, The Daily Beast reported in June.
While protesting outside an Oregon City Pride event, members of the extremist groups the Proud Boys and the Rose City Nationalists put their ideological similarities aside to sling slurs and punches at each other. During the spat, Proud Boys pulled off the ski masks that two RCN members were wearing, revealing their faces.
When footage of the fight hit the internet, observers were quick to call for the unmasked RCN members’ names. Almost immediately, according to Brody’s lawsuit, a far-right Twitter account shared Brody’s picture, falsely identifying him as one of the brawlers.
The Twitter user claimed Brody was proof that the neo-Nazi group was actually composed of federal agents in disguise. “A member of patriot front is ACTUALLY a political science student at a liberal school on a career path towards the feds,” the Twitter user wrote.
That identification was obviously incorrect. The Twitter user had lifted Brody’s picture from an Instagram post by Brody’s Jewish fraternity—an unlikely affiliation for a neo-Nazi.
Nevertheless, Musk was quick to reply to the post. “Very odd,” the world’s richest person wrote.
People who knew Brody were quick to push back on the allegations. “Its not Ben Brody, I spoke with him and a friend earlier, he was not there,” a Twitter user replied several hours after Musk’s post.
Brody also took to social media to defend himself. On Instagram, he shared time-stamped receipts showing him buying a drink in California on the day of the Oregon fight. He also contacted a store he’d visited at the time of the fight, requesting security footage that would have proved he was in California, according to the lawsuit. And he posted a video denouncing the rumors as “just crazy.”
“My family and I are being harassed completely,” Brody said in the clip.
Twitter users sent Brody’s denials to Musk, along with warnings that Musk was risking a defamation lawsuit. “It is not Benjamin Brody!” reads one tweet quoted in the lawsuit. “This is defamation!”
Nevertheless, Musk continued to tweet about the fight, replying “always remove their masks” to another tweet that falsely identified Brody.
Two days after his initial tweet about Brody, Musk replied to a conspiracy-promoting account, which had tweeted an article about Brody. “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 wrote.
Brody’s attorneys claim the posts are “yet another example of Elon Musk’s serial pattern of slander.”
“Musk has been personally using the platform to spread false statements on a consistent basis while propping up and amplifying the most reprehensible elements of conspiracy-addled Twitter,” the lawsuit alleges.
The suit points to other instances in which Musk has promoted conspiracy theories, like one that falsely claimed a brutal attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband was part of a gay lovers’ quarrel. The attack was actually carried out by a conspiracy blogger.
One of those conspiracy claims has previously resulted in a defamation case against Musk. In 2018, Musk became embroiled in a war of words with a cave diver who had helped rescue 12 boys trapped in a Thailand cave. After the diver criticized Musk’s cave-rescue plan, Musk baselessly called the diver a “pedo guy.” The diver (represented by soon-to-be-infamous conspiracy lawyer Lin Wood) sued Musk for defamation but lost.
Brody still lives with the effects of Musk’s allegations, the lawsuit claims.
“When Musk fully endorsed the accusation on June 27th, Ben felt like his life was over,” the suit reads, adding that Brody is worried his dreams for a public-facing government career might be in jeopardy.
“Ben worries that future employers may decide that it’s simply not worth it to hire an employee in a public-facing position who is connected to a bizarre controversy involving a neo-Nazi group,” his lawsuit claims.
The suit also likens Brody’s case to that of Sandy Hook parents, whom Brody’s lawyer previously represented.
“Ben is also aware that fringe members of conspiracy-obsessed communities often fixate years later on individuals who were alleged to have participated in a ‘false flag’ such as the parents of children murdered at Sandy Hook,” his suit notes.
