Elon Musk admits his posts on Twitter/X may have caused financial harm to the company

Elon Musk, the influential billionaire and CEO of multiple companies including Tesla and SpaceX, recently faced public scrutiny after a deposition was made public revealing his admissions regarding the impact of his tweets on the platform formerly known as Twitter. In the deposition dated March 27th and disclosed by The Huffington Post on Monday, Musk acknowledged that his posts may have caused financial harm to the company.

The deposition was related to a defamation lawsuit filed by Ben Brody, a 22-year-old Californian, against Musk. Brody alleges that Musk falsely linked him to a far-right conspiracy theory involving a brawl between the Proud Boys and a neo-Nazi group in Oregon. Musk’s tweets, promoting the conspiracy theory, suggested that Brody was part of a “false flag” operation, implying he was an undercover government agent involved in the incident.

During the deposition, Musk admitted to having a “limited understanding” of the lawsuit and expressed confusion about why Brody pursued litigation against him. He accused Brody’s attorney of pursuing a cash grab, implying the lawsuit was motivated by financial gain rather than legitimate concerns.

Musk also addressed his usage of Twitter, indicating that he did not guide his posts by financial considerations but rather by what he believed would be interesting or entertaining to the public. He acknowledged that his posts, particularly those involving controversial topics, might have had a negative impact on Twitter’s financial performance.

In response to questions about the reach and impact of his tweets, Musk downplayed the significance of his posts, claiming that a million views on Twitter were inconsequential given the platform’s overall traffic of five to eight trillion views annually.

Moreover, Musk admitted to owning an account (@ermnmusk) where he role-played as his own toddler son, which was previously uncovered by various media outlets.

Despite the allegations and the ensuing controversy, Musk maintained that he did not believe Brody was “meaningfully harmed” by the false accusations. He argued that individuals are frequently attacked online without significant adverse effects on their lives. Our opinion on this matter is that Musk believes he is simply trolling them but he is currently in a very influential position so he may have to curb his trolling a bit.