from the strike-me-down-with-space-lasers dept

Elon Musk’s SLAPP Threat Over ‘Space Lasers’ Doc Sort Of Admits The ‘Space Lasers’ Part

By now, calling Elon Musk a “free speech absolutist” is a joke. We have so many stories of him suppressing speech, or threatening, or suing people for their speech. At this point, anyone who still claims that Musk supports free speech is either (1) lying, (2) stupid, or (3) employed by him. So, it’s little surprise that he’s been threatening to sue basically everyone connected to Alex Gibney’s new documentary about Musk, using his favorite big bully of a lawyer, Alex Spiro:

In a letter sent to Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions, the company behind the film, Musk attorney Alex Spiro homes in on an exchange between Gibney and Ashley St. Clair, a former MAGA influencer who dated Musk and had a child with the billionaire.

St. Clair described text messages Musk sent her before the November 2024 presidential election in which he said he was “feeling more optimistic” about Donald Trump winning because “tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” When St. Clair asked for clarity, Musk said he planned on tapping “‘Lasers’ from space,” adding that “I have over 10 thousand lasers in space right now.”

But, Spiro’s threat letter tries to explain what Musk actually meant:

“Starlink’s satellites communicate by laser inter-satellite link; that is what ‘lasers in space’ describes,” he wrote.

So, hey, that sure sounds like an admission that Musk did, in fact, refer to “lasers in space.” Which would make St. Clair’s statement about receiving said texts true. And therefore not defamatory, because then the dispute is solely about what Musk meant, not what he actually said. “My client did send that text, but you’re reading it wrong” is pure SLAPP buffoonery.

Gibney is one of the most famous documentary filmmakers working today, especially when the subject is a powerful and controversial company or individual. He’s made well-regarded and award-winning documentaries on Scientology, Theranos / Elizabeth Holmes, Enron, Eliot Spitzer, and more.

So it’s no surprise that news of the Musk documentary — which kicked off its publicity run with a massive cover story in The Hollywood Reporter — got so much attention and interest. Including from Musk and his lawyers. Musk, as he is known to do, threw a bit of a hissy fit on X:

Curious how he would know “it misses” when he hadn’t yet seen it. Gibney had a similar concern… three whole years ago when it was first reported he was making this documentary and Musk called it a hit piece, to which Gibney responded:

But throwing a fit on X only gets you so far. Bullying people into silence is what SLAPP suits are for, and Musk has plenty of practice. In the threat letter, Spiro tries to paint Musk as a free speech supporter, even while threatening a SLAPP suit:

In the letter, addressed to Jigsaw Productions and dated Sept. 3, Spiro says they tried to contact the team “multiple times” and “requested an opportunity to present the facts in the normal fact-checking process that is the hallmark of ethical journalism.  You have refused to engage.”

The letter continues: “While we are ardent supporters of the First Amendment, and respect the reporting process, it has become abundantly clear that the motivations behind this piece are not the pursuit of truth, but something far different. This project did not begin as an inquiry. It began with a conclusion.”

“You are on notice, before release, that the insinuation is false, that the material refuting it is public, and that you chose not to be told the rest,” Spiro wrote.

But, of course, the key line in the letter is effectively Spiro admitting that they know that the movie doesn’t actually accuse Elon of using “space lasers” to impact the election:

“Defamation does not require an express accusation.”

That alone is misleading. Yes, there are certain cases where defamation doesn’t require a direct accusation, but… those cases have to be pretty specific. What seems quite clear from all the context provided is that Gibney interviewed Elon’s ex, Ashley St. Clair, and she shared this exchange about the space lasers with him. And all the movie does is report St. Clair’s account of what Musk apparently texted her. Accurately reporting what a source says she was told isn’t defamation.

But Spiro is a blustering censorial bully, so of course he sent the threat letter to everyone associated with the film:

The letter puts not only Gibney and Jigsaw on notice but everyone involved in the film’s release, including HBO, Bleecker Street and Universal.

Gibney’s production studio has responded to the letter, and given that Gibney has battled Scientology, he’s not one who is easily intimidated by censorial bullies.

Jigsaw Productions has issued a statement in response to the letter: “Alex Gibney’s films are consistently recognized for their in-depth, fact-driven explorations of influential figures and corporations, coupled with his bold and engaging directorial style. This approach has garnered him international praise, an Academy Award among other accolades, and a reputation that The Times of London recently lauded as the ‘gold standard for fearless journalistic integrity.’ The right to engage in open debate and fact-based examinations of powerful public figures is protected by the first amendment — something that should be recognized and defended by all Americans, including the associates of Elon Musk, who has proclaimed himself to be a ‘free speech absolutist.’”

There’s an amusing side note to all of this, which is that one of Musk’s chosen “Twitter Files” writers, Michael Shellenberger, who hilariously is the “Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech” at Bari Weiss’s flailing University of Austin, appears to have helped kick off the legal threats, by claiming that the documentary promotes a debunked conspiracy theory:

Spiro’s letter (at least the parts revealed so far — the full letter doesn’t appear to be posted anywhere) echoes the points Shellenberger raised. Which is rich for a few reasons. The guy who spent years falsely claiming that “trust & safety” teams were the “censorship industrial complex” is now (1) whining about the promotion of conspiracy theories and misinformation, and (2) helping give Elon Musk (who helped Shellenberger by having him be a part of the Twitter Files team) ammo to issue SLAPP threats.

To be clear, I agree that the idea that Musk hacked the election is a nonsense conspiracy theory. It’s not how any of this works.

And it’s entirely believable that Musk said something intentionally cryptic about something mundane, as what he believed was a joke. St. Clair says she responded to the initial claim about space lasers with a terrible “joke” of her own: “wow, finally a focus on the Jewish vote” — a nod to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Jewish space laser conspiracy theory, which may well be what Musk was (weakly) riffing on in the first place.

None of which actually matters because nothing St. Clair says appears to directly accuse Musk of hacking the election. Instead, she was mostly curious how Musk appeared to have all sorts of real time voting data, and was hoping that the powers that be would investigate whether Musk had done anything he wasn’t supposed to.

And when St. Clair first revealed these texts earlier this year in a TikTok video, she insisted that not only did she have the texts, but that she had shared them with multiple people. She mentioned that included someone working on a bigger project — which seems likely to have been Gibney.

As we’ve discussed hundreds of times, for it to be defamation of a public figure (which Musk obviously is), the speech would need to be shared with “actual malice.” And that doesn’t just mean “they didn’t like him.” It means Gibney would have had to include the texts either knowing St. Clair made them up, or with serious doubts about whether she had, and running them anyway.

The whole thing is classic Musk: the guy stomping around pretending to be a free speech absolutist, using his vast resources to try to bully everyone connected with the film into silence, and in the process, only making sure that many more people hear about the documentary, and are interested in seeing it when it hits theaters on October 16. Great marketing chops there, Elon, helping drive more attention to the film…