Elon Musk is currently at the center of a defamation lawsuit following a series of posts accusing an individual of being involved in a neo-Nazi false flag operation later proven to be unfounded this year. The complaint was filed in a Texas court by Ben Brody, a 22-year-old Californian, as reported by HuffPost. Brody accused Musk of unleashing a massive campaign of harassment against him through a series of misleading posts about a brawl involving neo-Nazi extremists in Oregon over the summer. It all started in June, when a violent argument broke out between two far-right groups during a Pride festival in Oregon City. Images of the brawl quickly spread on social media, and soon people were claiming that one of the participants was a federal agent, and attempts were being made to identify him. Unfortunately, Brody was mistakenly identified as one of the men in the video. Musk responded to several unfair posts on X about Brody, amplifying them among his more than 147 million followers at the time.
On June 27, Musk responded to a post containing a video of the brawl, claiming that Brody was involved in a “false flag” operation. “It appears one is a college student (who wants to join the government) and another is possibly an Antifa member, but still probably a false flag situation,” Musk wrote on X. Brody’s attorney, Mark Bankston, said on It should be noted that Bankston was previously the attorney for two parents of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in the case against Alex Jones, the well-known conspiracy theorist who had falsely claimed the 2012 shooting never happened. In that case, the parents won a $45 million settlement.
In his complaint, Brody claims that he and his family were forced to leave their home due to the harassment campaign, claiming that it was amplified by Musk’s posts. Numerous people mistakenly believed that Brody was either a neo-Nazi or a provocateur involved in a plot for political terrorism in the United States. Musk has been involved in several defamation cases in the past, and has rarely opted for an out-of-court settlement in such situations, although there have been exceptions. In 2018, for example, he called Vernon Unsworth, the diver who led a crucial rescue in a cave in Thailand, a “pedo guy.” Unsworth had filed a defamation lawsuit against Musk, but lost it in 2019.
