Elon Musk has been having a tumultuous time managing Twitter. Since the acquisition, the South African billionaire has fired nearly half of its workforce and has made some bizarre changes in the company. As he is spending more time on Twitter, it’s impacting the rest of his companies.
Recently, the 51-year-old tech mogul’s company Tesla agreed to pay $10,000 to settle a defamation suit filed by a critic of the electric car maker. This comes just a year after Musk vowed to never pay for an unjust claim. So let’s find out the details of this lawsuit and why it was filed.
Related: Elon Musks Twitter Changes Its Parental Leave Policy
Elon Musk Losses A Lawsuit From A Tesla Critic
Randeep Hothi, a Tesla critic had filed a defamation suit on Elon Musk for $10,000. The Tesla CEO has agreed to pay the sum to settle the case. Hothi had sued him for allegedly defaming him with untrue allegations.
In a statement released via his lawyers, Hothi said he “feels vindicated“. In 2018, he created headlines for his tweets under the username Skabooshka. He would often call out Tesla’s shaky production of the Model 3 sedan.
Hothi, who grew up near the electric car maker’s Fremont factory, often used cameras and drones to monitor its production output. The company got a restraining order against him in 2019 over stalking. However, Tesla dropped all those charges later on.
He claims that Musk’s tweet against him started a hate campaign against him in which he was called “a liar, a murderer, a terrorist, and a deranged maniac.” These events are a turnaround as just a year ago Musk claimed he would “never surrender/settle an unjust case” against him.
In case you missed: Money, Money, Money: Elon Musk Reveals New Model For News Publications To Charge Readers Directly On Twitter
Musk Was Called “Hypocrite” By A Tesla Investor
Ross Gerber, one of the top investors of Tesla and Twitter, has slammed Musk for the way he has been handling Twitter. Gerber particularly called out the way Twitter Blue started out and blue ticks were given to random users.
“Elon went out of his way to insult people with blue checks as being entitled famous people, and implied that the system he was creating was this egalitarian free world where verification was just based off being you — and famous people wouldn’t get this free privilege,” he said.
Gerber added, “So when he reversed himself he just looked like a total hypocrite, and then the way he did it was even worse because then he gave it to people with at least one million followers.”
You might also like to read: Mark Cuban Says Elon Musk’s Twitter Strategy Is A Huge Mistake
