Elon Musk's X lawsuit against Media Matters scheduled for trial in April
By Brian Fung, CNN
(CNN) — A lawsuit brought by Elon Musk’s X against the nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters has been scheduled for a trial in April 2025, according to a court filing.
Thursday’s order by the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas sets the date for a high-profile showdown over Media Matters’ research highlighting antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on the social media platform.
In November, X sued Media Matters, alleging that the group went out of its way to misrepresent the likelihood that users may encounter hate speech on the platform.
CNN has reached out to X for comment on Thursday’s order. Media Matters declined to comment.
Media Matters President Angelo Carusone has previously called X’s suit “frivolous” and an attempt to silence Musk’s critics.
The lawsuit claimed that Media Matters’ testing methodology was not representative of how real users experience the site and that the group’s reports distorted the odds of a person seeing extremist material.
Motions for summary judgment in the case are due in December, and a decision by the judge on those filings could decide the case prior to trial.
Musk has suffered setbacks in similar cases. In March, a federal judge in California reprimanded X and tossed out a lawsuit it had filed against another watchdog group, the Center for Countering Digital Hate. In a blistering 52-page order, the judge blasted that case as plainly punitive rather than about protecting the platform’s security and legal rights.
“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation,” wrote District Judge Charles Breyer, of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, in the order’s opening lines. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose.”
“This case represents the latter circumstance,” Breyer continued. “This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.”
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