A Texas federal judge who owns Tesla stock has thrown out an attempt to force his disqualification from overseeing the legal battle between Elon Musk’s X and Media Matters.
Media Matters — a left-wing nonprofit that Musk is suing for defamation — had filed a motion arguing that X should identify Tesla as an “interested party” in the lawsuit because Musk is closely associated with both brands. .
The label could have forced US District Judge Reed O’Connor, who has been found to own Tesla stock worth between $15,001 and $50,000 in 2022, to recuse himself from the case.
O’Connor accused Media Matters of “gameplay” legal efforts while denying the motion last Friday.
The judge found that Media Matters had failed to meet the legal standard to prove that Tesla has a “financial interest” in X.
“Defendants have failed to show facts that X’s alleged connection to Tesla meets this standard,” O’Connor said. “Instead, it appears that defendants seek to compel a retroactive exclusion through their motion to compel.”
“Gamesmanship of this type is inappropriate and in violation of the rules of the Northern District of Texas,” he added.
O’Connor ordered Media Matters to pay X’s legal fees related to the motion.
Media representatives did not immediately return a request for comment on the judge’s decision.
X filed suit against Media Matters last November — with Musk once referring to the nonprofit as “pure evil.”
The complaint alleged that the nonprofit had “knowingly and maliciously produced side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform alongside extremist neo-Nazi and white nationalist content and then portrayed these images produced as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform.”
O’Connor’s decision came just days after he decided to withdraw from a separate federal antitrust lawsuit filed by X against the World Federation of Advertisers, its now-defunct nonprofit arm GARM and a handful of prominent companies, including Unilever and March.
The judge did not explain why he decided to recuse himself from that case. O’Connor also owns shares of Unilever, which may have prompted the decision, according to Ars Technica.
In that lawsuit, Musk’s firm has accused WFA and GARM of organizing an illegal undercover boycott to stop advertising dollars from X over alleged “brand safety” issues.
The lawsuit was filed shortly after the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee released a scathing report detailing evidence that GARM executive Robert Rakowitz and others coordinated a campaign to limit advertising on a host of media and online platforms, including The Post.
GARM abruptly ceased operations earlier this month, citing the cost of mounting a legal defense against Musk.
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Image Source : nypost.com