Elon Musk has agreed to settle a three-year defamation lawsuit brought against him by an outspoken Tesla critic. The billionaire will pay $10,000 to Randeep Hothi, at the conclusion of the protracted court proceedings, according to the statement. several reports And Tweet From Plaintiff posted on Monday.
The settlement comes about a year after Musk said Tesla would “never give up / settle an unjust case against us, even if we’d probably lose,” in a statement. Tweet topic With the goal of attracting lawyers to Tesla’s “strict litigation division”.
After settling the musk. In March, the billionaire agreed to resolve the defamation proceedings out of court, according to the company press release From the plaintiff’s legal team.
$10,000 is small change to Musk – precisely equal to about 0.0000057% of his net worth – and less than seven of the year earnings for most American households. For Hothi, however, the triumph seems to be more about the principle of the object than the physical reality. The settlement has been celebrated as a whitewashing success in many public statements.
“I filed this case to defend my work, clear my name and send a letter,” he said in the press release of his law firm. This case was about taking a stand, not the pursuit of fame or money. I feel vindicated.” On Twitter, Hothi reiterated those sentiments several times, adding barbs against Musk. “I am glad to see that the world now realizes that he is a charlatan,” he wrote.
The now-completed legal proceedings revolve around Musk’s 2019 comments in which the Tesla CEO claimed Hothi harassed and attempted to kill Tesla employees. The plaintiff denied the statements were true, claimed them to be defamatory, and said he had suffered greatly from an online hate campaign. Apparently, Tesla was unable to prove Hothe wrong.
Hothi, a graduate student, is a well-known figure among critics of Tesla and Musk, as well as billionaire sycophants. It has attracted a large number on the Internet In the lead-up to Tesla Model 3 production cars under the Twitter account The name “Skabooshka”.“Hothi collected and published Drone footage and other photos from the company’s factory in Fremont, California suggest The reality did not match Musk’s account. The graduate student was on a mission to disprove Tesla’s high-tech claimsautomated production of Model 3, which It ended up being incorrect-Likes many of Musk sayings.
Hothi has become something of a folk hero among Tesla short sellers, while drawing significant attention and anger from Musk himself. The CEO ordered Tesla’s security guards to fire the “independent investigator” if they saw Hothi or his car near the factory.
In 2019, Tesla attempted to have Hothi arrested and later tried to get a court to issue a restraining order against the graduate student, after two separate incidents. In one, the company alleged that Hothi had hit a Tesla guard with his car in an alleged hit-and-run accident at a publicly accessible Tesla showroom next to the Fremont manufacturing facility. However, Tesla dropped the case after law enforcement told the company that the security camera recording showed no evidence of a hit-and-run. according to Los Angeles Times.
In the second incident, Tesla claimed that Hothi had chased and harassed the Tesla driver away from Tesla property. But the company Drop the case After a judge ordered Tesla to release footage from the event, it was captured by the car’s camera.
In the wake of both defunct legal efforts against the graduate student, Musk wrote an email alleging that Hothi was “actively harassing” and that he “nearly killed” Tesla employees. The recipient of the email, Aaron Greenspan, is another longtime Tesla critic and owner of the legal search engine normal. Greenspan made Musk’s email public, and it became the basis of the Huthi libel case.
This isn’t the first widely publicized case of its kind against Musk – who has been known to spout online exaggerations and espouse falsehoods. previously A billionaire has been sued by a cave diver Who helped save a beleaguered Thai soccer team. Musk referred to the diver, Vernon Unsworth, as a “cocky guy” in a 2018 thread of tweets. The World The second richest The man ended up winning that case, which means you can legally call Elon Musk all sorts of creative things — both in public and in private. You can’t make up a story about him trying to hit you with his Tesla.
(tags to translation) The Boring Company