(Photograph by Apu Gomes/Getty Photos)
Black Card: “We’ve horrible information. Seven years in the past, 150,000 individuals paid us $15 to guard a pristine parcel of land on the US-Mexico border from racist billionaire Donald Trump’s very silly wall. Sadly, a fair richer, extra racist billionaire, ………… snuck up on us from behind and utterly fucked that land with gravel, tractors, and area rubbish.”
White Card: Elon Musk, by way of SpaceX, the rocket firm he makes use of to subsidize his silly plan to colonize Mars for the Übermenschen.
In 2017, the fellows behind the wildly profitable occasion recreation Playing cards Towards Humanity (CAH) crowdsourced $15 every from roughly 150,000 individuals to “buy a plot of vacant land on the US/Mexico border and retain a legislation agency specializing in eminent area to make it as time-consuming and costly as attainable for Trump to construct his preposterous wall.”
“Sadly, the USA authorities is extra highly effective than a comedy card recreation,” they conceded. “Nevertheless, we’ll do every part we will to protest the wall and decelerate the method of eminent area. If Trump tries to construct a wall on our land, we’ll be a giant ache within the ass.”
And certainly, Trump was a “large ache within the ass,” and continues to be so. However with respect to the CAH plot in Texas, Elon Musk turned out to be a fair larger ache. In keeping with a criticism filed within the District Court docket of Cameron County, SpaceX, which has a launch website simply three miles away, cleared the land of vegetation, laid down onerous gravel, and has been utilizing it as a building website for six months.
“After we caught him, SpaceX gave us a 12-hour ultimatum to simply accept a lowball supply for lower than half our land’s worth,” CAH wrote on an internet site saying the go well with. “We mentioned, ‘Go fuck your self, Elon Musk. We’ll see you in court docket.’”
The criticism alleges trespass, nuisance, unjust enrichment, and tortious interference with present and potential contracts and enterprise
relationships. That final is a reasonably good troll, because it’s precisely what Twitter alleged within the SLAPP go well with in opposition to Media Issues for America for publishing screenshots of Nazi content material subsequent to adverts for firms like IBM, Disney+, and Oracle. Twitter dragged Media Issues, which operates in DC, into federal court docket in Texas demanding to be made complete for the following advertiser exodus, and it ensured that it received the case in entrance of Decide Reed O’Connor, one of many solely judges within the nation craven sufficient to deny a movement to dismiss for lack of non-public jurisdiction.
Right here, CAH claims reputational injury with the donors who backed the acquisition of the land and calls for at the least $15 million.
“Musk, by permitting his firm to wrongfully function on CAH’s Property, casts the shadow of attainable affiliation between him and CAH,” they argue within the criticism. “Nothing might be extra offensive to CAH nor extra dangerous to its repute with its supporters.”
Along with suing, CAH arrange ElonOwesYou100Dollars.com, to publicize the hassle.
If we win, we’ll equally break up the lawsuit’s internet proceeds amongst all 150,000 of our authentic subscribers, as much as $100 every. Whereas this isn’t sufficient to compensate our subscribers for the anguish they’ve suffered witnessing Elon Musk defile their once-verdant land⸺the place wild horses galloped freely within the Texas moonlight⸺we predict it’s a reasonably good begin.
“P.S. We will even settle for Twitter.com as compensation,” they add.
It’s a wonderful troll, and one which is assured to drive the web’s most brain-poisoned oligarch to lose his shit.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she produces the Regulation and Chaos substack and podcast.
