Elon Musk agreed to pay $10,000 to settle a defamation lawsuit by a Tesla critic who became a hero to short sellers with his Twitter posts and then accused the CEO of smearing him with false allegations that he menaced the electric-car maker’s employees, according to lawyers for the plaintiff.
Randeep Hothi got into a court skirmish with Tesla in California after he gained a following on Twitter under the handle “Skabooshka” calling out the company’s rocky production of its Model 3 sedan in 2018. Hothi grew up near Tesla’s factory in Fremont, where he monitored production output using cameras and drones and his on-the-ground research caught the attention of several hedge funds.
In 2019 Tesla sought a restraining order against Hothi over claims he stalked its factory and harassed its employees — including dangerously swerving his car toward a Model 3 that was on a freeway test drive and injuring a Tesla security guard in a hit-and-run on company property.
Hothi denied those allegations and Tesla dropped its court complaint, but Hothi claimed in a 2020 defamation suit that Musk’s public criticism of him triggered an online hate campaign in which he was accused of being “a liar, a murderer, a terrorist, and a deranged maniac.”
Hothi said in a statement issued by his lawyers Monday that the settlement achieves his goal to clear his name and he tweeted about being vindicated.
In a tweet, he said: “In March 2023, Musk asked me to settle. I believe my work is now vindicated. For...
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