A sourced record of 212 statements and actions by Elon Musk and his companies since 2022: interventions in the politics, governments, courts and regulation of 43 countries and the European Union, threats and legal action against critics, and the use of market power against competitors. Each entry sets out what he said or did, the background, the response and what happened next.
Musk's attorney Alex Spiro sent Jigsaw Productions a letter dated 3 September warning that Alex Gibney's documentary Musk defames him and ordering preservation of footage, transcripts, research files and internal communications. The letter also named HBO, B…
Response: Jigsaw said its right to engage in open debate and fact-based examinations of powerful public figures is protected by the First Amendment, and that Musk's associates, who have called themselves "fr…
Media Matters sued X in San Francisco, calling X's suits in Texas, Ireland (filed December 2023) and Singapore (July 2024) a vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism and arguing X's own terms required cases to be filed in San Francisco. Twitter UK had also…
Response: X had since amended its terms of service to require disputes to be filed in the Northern District of Texas. Media Matters left X in January 2026, objecting to new terms it said attempted to apply ret…
After 60 Minutes aired a segment critical of the USAID funding cuts Musk was leading through DOGE, he replied to the programme's post: "60 Minutes are the biggest liars in the world! They engaged in deliberate deception to interfere with the last election. Th…
Response: CBS had said the released materials confirmed the broadcast was not doctored or deceitful. No CBS response to Musk's post was reported.
Musk, then named by Trump to co-lead a government cost-cutting effort, reposted posts from an anonymous account listing the names and titles of four women in federal climate roles, commenting So many fake jobs on one. The posts drew tens of millions of view…
Response: AFGE union president Everett Kelley said: These tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees. X did not respond to CNN's request for comment.
X suspended the accounts of journalists including Ken Klippenstein (The Intercept), Steven Monacelli (Texas Observer) and Alan MacLeod, along with several left-leaning commentators. Most accounts were restored within hours.
Response: Musk posted: We do sweeps for spam/scam accounts and sometimes real accounts get caught up in them. X answered Fast Company's questions with its automated press reply.
Asked at the New York Times DealBook Summit about advertisers leaving X, Musk said that anyone trying to blackmail him with advertising should go fuck yourself, repeated Don't advertise, and addressed Disney CEO Bob Iger: "Hey Bob, if you're in the audi…
Response: Iger, speaking earlier at the summit, said association with Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us.
Musk posted that X would file a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters when courts opened on Monday. X then sued the group and its reporter Eric Hananoki in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, alleging they knowingly and maliciously manufactured imag…
Response: Media Matters president Angelo Carusone called it a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X's critics into silence and said the group stands behind its reporting.
Musk posted that the ADL had been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic, said US ad revenue was down 60% primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL, and said X may file a defamation suit. He later estimated A…
Response: An ADL spokesperson said the group was unsurprised yet undeterred and does not comment on legal threats. ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt called Musk's conduct "flat out dangerous and deeply irrespons…
X Corp sued the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) in San Francisco federal court, alleging it illegally scraped data and cherry-picked posts in a scare campaign to drive away advertisers. X sought damages and an order barring CCDH from its…
Response: CCDH said By threatening us, Musk is trying to hide the truth about his own failures. CEO Imran Ahmed later called the suit a hypocritical campaign of harassment.
Twitter suspended the accounts of several reporters, including CNN's Donie O'Sullivan, The New York Times' Ryan Mac, The Washington Post's Drew Harwell and The Intercept's Micah Lee, after coverage of the @elonjet ban. Musk wrote that "doxxing my real-time lo…
Response: A spokesman for UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the suspensions a dangerous precedent. EU Commissioner Věra Jourová warned of possible sanctions under EU law, saying "There are red lin…
Twitter permanently suspended the @elonjet account and its creator Jack Sweeney's personal account. Musk said a crazy stalker had followed a car carrying his son and posted: "Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to…
Response: Musk also posted that his plane is actually not trackable without using non-public data.
CNN reported that Yoel Roth, Twitter's former head of trust and safety, left his home after threats against him increased. A person familiar with his situation told CNN the threats escalated after Musk appeared to endorse a post falsely accusing Roth of sympa…
Response: CNN's report did not include a response from Musk. A Twitter statement quoted in the report, that it was unfortunate to see individual employees targeted for company decisions, dates from 2020, whe…
After Android engineer Eric Frohnhoefer publicly contradicted Musk's explanation of why the app was slow, Musk posted He's fired. Bloomberg reported that a second engineer, Ben Leib, was also fired after a critical retweet, and Platformer reported that abou…
Response: Twitter, whose communications team had largely been laid off, did not respond to requests for comment. Termination emails reported by Platformer said the employees' "recent behavior has violated comp…
SpaceX fired several employees who wrote and circulated an internal open letter saying Musk's public behaviour was a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for the company. President Gwynne Shotwell said in a staff email, first reported by The New…
Response: Shotwell wrote that the letter and solicitations made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry and that "We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this…
United States3 sources
Ireland
Singapore
United Kingdom
European Union