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Elon Musk’s affidavit in a lawsuit accusing him of falsely supporting a conspiracy theory has been released.
Musk’s lawyers tried to prevent the statement from being published, the Huffington Post reported.
In the affidavit, Musk said he had financially harmed X more than helped him.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor.
An affidavit that Elon Musk’s lawyer wanted to keep secret from the public was released on Monday. Musk was questioned in March as part of a lawsuit alleging the billionaire promoted a conspiracy theory that falsely linked 22-year-old student Ben Brody to a neo-Nazi group.
Brody filed the lawsuit last fall after Musk shared posts on his social media site Nationalists and the Proud Boys. The groups intended to disrupt the LGBTQ event.
Last year, Musk responded to a series of posts on X about the incident that seemed to indicate that Brody was one of the people in a video of the incident. “It looks like one is a student (who wants to join the government) and another may be an Antifa member,” Musk wrote on X. “But a likely false flag situation nonetheless.”
Brody is suing for $1 million in damages and accuses Musk of damaging his reputation. The 22-year-old said he has been vilified and harassed on social media due to the impact of the posts, even having to flee his home at one point.
Die „Huffington Post” was the first to report the transcript of the testimony, which was released on Monday. A judge rejected efforts by Musk’s lawyer to mark the transcript as “confidential,” the publication reported. Take a look at some of the most interesting quotes from the two-hour survey.
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Musk says he may have done more harm than good to X
During the interrogation, Bankston asked Musk about a quote from Walter Isaacson’s biography about the Tesla boss. In the book, Isaacson quotes Musk as saying, “I’ve shot myself in the foot so many times that I should buy Kevlar boots.”
Musk said in questioning that he was “guilty of many self-inflicted wounds.”
“I may have done more to harm the company financially than to help it, but I base my contributions not on what is financially beneficial, but on what I believe will be of interest to the public.” is important or entertaining,” Musk later said in response to a question from Bankston about whether he had used his posts on X to promote the social media company formerly called Twitter.
Since Musk bought Twitter in 2022, the company has lost many of its biggest advertisers, and Musk has been criticized for some of his posts on the site, including one in which he appeared to support a post that promoted the “Great Exchange” conspiracy theory , which is often spread by racists.
Fidelity lowered in February the value of his stake in Musk’s social media company, saying that X’s valuation had fallen 73 percent since Musk bought the platform for $44 billion (40.5 billion euros).
“One is my main account and the other is Baby Smoke 9000”
Musk admitted that he briefly used a “test account” on
„Motherboard” first reported on one of the suspicious accounts, @ermnmusk, after Musk posted a screenshot of his Twitter account. Some users managed to track down the suspected additional account that appeared in the photo.
Musk appears to have used the account @ermnmusk to write about X from the perspective of his three-year-old son, also named X. “I’m finally turning three on May 4th,” the account posted in April 2023, Motherboard reported. Musk’s son with Grimes, X Æ A-12, was born on May 4th.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk walks through the pit lane with one of his sons after the 2023 United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, October 22, 2023. CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP
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“I wish I was old enough to go to nightclubs,” another tweet from the account read in 2023, according to Motherboard. “They sound so fun.” Musk said during his testimony that he had used the alternate account for testing purposes but that it was no longer in use. “I briefly used this account as a test account,” Musk said. “There are only two accounts that I use regularly. One is my main account and the other is Baby Smoke 9000.”
As for Musk’s mention of “baby smoke 9000,” it’s not clear whether Musk was referring to a username that is literally @babysmoke9000, but if so, X lists that handle as not currently in use.
The account @ermnmusk, on the other hand, only posted on X on Monday under the name “Elon Test”.
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“I rely on Community Notes for fact-checking”
The X owner said he does not use any of the company’s internal tools to verify the legitimacy of a post on the site before interacting with it. Instead, he posts things with the intention of taking advantage of X’s Community Notes feature, which allows users to correct inaccuracies.
When asked by the lawyer whether he tried to verify the information about Brody before boosting posts on X that appeared to refer to him, Musk said he did not. “I don’t recall obtaining any other information,” Musk replied.
“I think I really did this in good faith because otherwise I wouldn’t be asking for a fact check. But I do it by adding Community Notes,” Musk said, noting that he had tagged Community Notes in his post.
The feature allows users to add notes to a post on “Musk told Bankston. “I rely on Community Notes for fact-checking,” Musk said. “I think it’s the best system on the internet.”
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“The real plaintiff is the lawyer who wants money”
Musk also made fun of the lawyer who asked him questions. When Bankston asked the billionaire if he understood that Brody had sued him, Musk said that it was actually Brody’s lawyer who sued him.
“I see in many cases, and probably in this one, that the real plaintiff is the lawyer who wants money, like you,” Musk said.
Musk says attacks on social media rarely have a “significant negative impact” on a person’s life
When asked if he felt his posts about Brody had negatively impacted the 22-year-old, Musk said he didn’t think that was the case. “People are constantly attacked in the media, online media and social media, but it is rare that it actually has a significant negative impact on their lives,” Musk said.
Musk and his lawyer Alex Spiro did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bankston declined to comment.
Read the original article in English here.