A Texas federal judge who has owned Tesla stock has shot down an effort to force his recusal from overseeing the legal fight between Elon Musk’s X and Media Matters.
Media Matters – a left-wing nonprofit that Musk is suing for defamation – had filed a motion arguing that X should identify Tesla as an “interested party” in the lawsuit because Musk is closely tied to both brands.
The label could have forced US District Judge Reed O’Connor, who has disclosed owning Tesla stock worth between $15,001 and $50,000 in 2022, to recuse himself from the case.
O’Connor accused Media Matters of attempting legal “gamesmanship” while rejecting the motion last Friday.
The judge found that Media Matters had failed to meet the legal standard for establishing that Tesla has “financial interest” in X.
“Defendants failed to show facts that X’s alleged connection to Tesla meets this standard,” O’Connor said. “Instead, it appears Defendants seek to force a backdoor recusal through their Motion to Compel.”
“Gamesmanship of this sort is inappropriate and contrary to the rules of the Northern District of Texas,” he added.
O’Connor ordered Media Matters to pay X’s legal fees related to the motion.
Representatives for Media Matters did not immediately return a request for comment on the judge’s decision.
X filed suit against Media Matters last November — with Musk once referring to the nonprofit as “pure evil.”
The complaint alleged that the nonprofit had “knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform.”
O’Connor’s decision came just days after he opted to recuse himself from a separate federal antitrust lawsuit filed by X against the World Federation of Advertisers, its now-defunct nonprofit arm GARM and a handful of prominent companies, including Unilever and Mars.
The judge did not explain why he opted to refuse himself from that case. O’Connor also owns shares of Unilever, which could have prompted the decision, according to Ars Technica.
In that lawsuit, Musk’s firm has accused the WFA and GARM of organizing an illegal collusive boycott to withhold advertising dollars from X over alleged “brand safety” issues.
The lawsuit was filed shortly after the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee released a scathing report detailing evidence that GARM executive Robert Rakowitz and others coordinated a campaign to restrict ads to a slew of news outlets and online platforms, including The Post.
GARM abruptly ceased operations earlier this month, citing the cost of mounting a legal defense against Musk.