San Franisco - Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, issued a warning on Thursday of potential new legal action against individuals advocating for restrictions on free speech or making claims related to hate speech. This statement was prompted by a post on X (formerly Twitter) that asserted non-governmental organizations were increasingly submitting unsubstantiated complaints about hate speech.

Musk took to his official X account to declare, "Exactly. X will be filing legal action to stop this. Can't wait for discovery to start!"

The preceding context involved Michael Shellenberger, who, along with other journalists, previously released the "Twitter Files." Shellenberger shared a screenshot of a publication citing unnamed "Soros-funded NGOs," accompanied by the comment, "Politicians and George Soros-funded NGOs say 'hate incidents' are rising, but they're not. The data show the opposite: higher-than-ever and rising levels of tolerance of minorities." He further asserted that these entities were spreading misleading information to rationalize stringent measures against free speech.

Notably, X had previously filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit organization critical of the platform's handling of hate speech. This legal action was initiated shortly after X's threat of litigation had been publicly disclosed. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco federal court on July 31, accuses CCDH of intentionally attempting to drive advertisers away from X by publishing reports critical of the platform's response to hateful content.

The lawsuit claims that CCDH violated Twitter's terms of service and federal hacking laws by extracting data from the platform and encouraging an undisclosed individual to collect information improperly from Twitter that had been shared with a third-party brand monitoring provider.

The legal complaint alleges that CCDH engaged in an extensive campaign to stifle users of Twitter's platform by drawing attention to the viewpoints they express on social media. This lawsuit follows CCDH's disclosure of Twitter's initial threat to sue, along with its response to X's warning, in which CCDH dismissed the claims as "ridiculous."