Elon Musk, the owner of X who baselessly amplified a tweet linking a 22-year-old Jewish man to a neo-Nazi group last year, said he didn’t believe the man had been “meaningfully harmed” by being subjected to the full force of his considerable social media clout. Testifying in a deposition for a libel suit brought by the man, Ben Brody, Musk said, “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.” A transcript of the two-hour deposition from March 27 was made public on Monday, and was first obtained by HuffPost. In it, Musk admitted that he had a “limited understanding” of Brody’s allegations against him, to the extent that he originally believed Brody’s attorney was the plaintiff in the case. He also said he did no research of his own before tweeting last June that a brawl between two right-wing extremist groups in Portland, Oregon had actually been “a probable false flag situation,” and that Brody had been involved. Brody, who has said he and his family have had to flee their home in the wake of harassment spurred by Musk’s tweet, which remained live on X as of Monday, is seeking more than $1 million in damages.
