The defamation case brought against Tesla CEO Elon Musk by pundit Randeep Hothi appears to be drawing to a close, and the billionaire is reported to be costing ten senior billionaires.
Lawyers representing Hothi, a prominent member of the TSLAQ short-selling community on Twitter, said in a statement that Musk asked to settle the nearly three-year-old case back in March. Hothi tweeted on Monday that he had accepted the alleged offer “for the modest sum of $10,000.”
The Tesla skeptic added that he was “looking forward to receiving a check from him in the mail.”
Hothi has risen to prominence as a skeptic of Tesla’s gigafactory plans and “fully self-driving” technology. In 2019, Tesla sought a permanent restraining order against Hothi, alleging he “stalked, harassed, and endangered employees” while they drove the Model 3.
In addition, Tesla said Hothi had trespassed on, and installed cameras around, his facility in Fremont, California.
In response, Hothi’s “defense fund” on GoFundMe targeted $100,000, eventually getting $229,592. Tesla quickly dropped its case without publicly disclosing evidence to support its claims.
However, the saga took another turn about a month later, when Musk claimed in an email to another outspoken critic of the company, Aaron Greenspan, that Hothi had “nearly killed Tesla employees.” Greenspan posted the CEO’s email, and Huthi later sued for libel in California’s Alameda Superior Court.
Hothi’s lawyers alleged that Musk’s comment “led to an onslaught of hateful backlash on Twitter,” saying that the CEO’s supporters accused “Hothi of being a liar, murderer, terrorist, and deranged lunatic” in a complaint in August 2020. Attorneys representing Musk petitioned the court to dismiss the case, but it did I finally made a discovery.
About a year ago, Musk chirp that Tesla would “never give up / settle an unjust case against us, even if we probably lose”. Hothi’s attorneys cited the tweet in a statement Monday, saying, “We welcome Musk’s belated acknowledgment that this case was fair.”
Court documents show that Hothi’s lawyers filed a motion earlier today to have the case dismissed.