District Judge Accused Elon Musk of Trying to ‘Cozy’ Up to Trump By Resisting Search Warrant for Ex-POTUS Account

Hannibal Hanschke/Pool via AP

Uncovered court documents reveal how a U.S. district judge berated Twitter when the social media company, now known as X, resisted in complying with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported on the unsealed filings describing the data Smith’s search warrant sought from the former president’s old account. This included Trump’s DMs, location information, draft tweets, and a list of all his liked, favorited, and retweeted tweets, including deleted ones.

Previous reporting on the search warrant showed that Twitter was fined $350,000 when the company delayed complying with it as it fought the nondisclosure order prohibiting them from telling Trump about the probe. Because of X’s resistance to the nondisclosure order, Judge Beryl Howell took notice of their “extraordinary” steps to protect Trump’s account, and she wondered if Elon Musk was trying to “cozy up with the former president.”

This was a recurring subject throughout the dispute as Howell called out Twitter’s attempts to defend Trump’s First Amendment rights after his lengthy suspension from the platform. This coincided with Howell asking Twitter attorney George Varghese “Is this to make Donald Trump feel like he is a particularly welcomed new renewed user?”

The documents also show Howell and Twitter’s legal team deliberated on whether Trump’s DMs could fall under executive privilege. Howell also pressed Twitter’s lawyers on the concerns held by prosecutors that their investigation would be put at risk if Twitter disclosed the search warrant’s existence.