Elon Musk Sued by California Man For ‘Ridiculously False and Damaging’ Claim He Was a Federal Agent Posing as a Neo-Nazi
AP Photo/ Benjamin Fanjoy, File
A 22-year-old recent college graduate who was at the center of a viral right-wing conspiracy theory has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk, accusing the tech billionaire of defaming him and fueling the misinformation that ruined his life.
Ben Brody, a Jewish resident of California, was catapulted into social media infamy earlier this year when he was falsely connected to a fight that broke out in Oregon City between the Proud Boys and the neo-Nazi group known as the Rose City Nationalists (RCN). One of the RCN members was caught on video with his mask off during the scuffle, and as Internet sleuths tried to determine his identity, right-wing users of the social media company once known as Twitter falsely claimed that the man was Brody.
From there, Brody’s name and face were circulated online as right-wingers claimed without evidence that he and other members of the RCN were actually secret federal agents. Musk exacerbated this by engaging with the fringe conspiracy on Twitter, amplifying it for his millions of followers to see.
HuffPost obtained a copy of the lawsuit Brody filed against Musk, wherein he accused Musk of slandering him and fueling the harassment that forced Brody and his family to leave their home. The outlet notes that Brody is being represented by attorney Mark Bankston, who represented two of the Sandy Hook parents who successfully sued Alex Jones for fueling the claim that the school shooting was a false flag.
From the lawsuit:
Musk made these ridiculously false and damaging accusations based on a tweet he had seen from an anonymous far-right extremist Twitter account. After amplifying the claim for two days, Musk personally leveled these accusations against Ben Brody, and it has led to severe personal harassment and permanent damage to his reputation… Musk’s defamatory statements have and will continue to cause harm to Ben Brody,” the lawsuit says. “Due to Musk’s conduct, Ben Brody has suffered and continues to suffer substantial damages in an amount to be proven at trial.
