U.S. Federal Judge Reed O’Connor has been a longtime active member of the Federalist Society. In 2018, he spoke on a panel at the annual Texas Chapters Conference.
The Federalist Society/Screenshot NPR
A U.S. District Judge in Texas has recused himself from a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s X days after NPR drew scrutiny to the judge’s investment in Tesla and questions about Musk using the court to engage in “forum-shopping.”
But O’Connor, according to his most recent publicly available financial disclosure, also invests in Unilever, one of the defendants in Musk’s suit against a coalition of brands. The judge reported receiving a dividend from the company in 2022 of $15,000 or less.
In O’Connor’s two-sentence order stepping aside from the Musk case, he did not offer an explanation.
Last week, Musk filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies CVS, Orsted, Unilever and Mars, noting the matter will be heard by another federal judge in North Texas, without explaining the decision further.
The lawsuit claimed brands illegally conspired against X to deprive the company of advertising revenue. The case has now been re-assigned to U.S. District Judge Judge Kinkeade, court records show.
According to O’Connor’s most recent publicly available financial disclosures, he owns up to $50,000 in stock in Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company. He also invests in and has profited from Unilever, raising questions about the judge’s ability to preside over the advertiser case impartially.
It is the second lawsuit Musk filed against a critic in O’Connor’s court based in Fort Worth, even though none of the parties are based in Texas.
In November, Musk’s X sued watchdog group Media Matters over reports the group released highlighting white nationalist content appearing next to brands that advertised on the platform.
In that case, O’Connor has issued sweeping rulings in favor of Musk, including granting Musk’s lawyers wide latitude to request hundreds of pages of documents from the nonprofit, a process known as legal discovery.
This was approved before O’Connor even ruled on whether the Musk case against Media Matters even had any merit.
For five months, Media Matters has been waiting for O’Connor to rule on a motion to dismiss, typically the first legal hurdle a lawsuit must clear before it proceeds. It has not yet been considered. Meanwhile, the nonprofit has spent millions of dollars complying with document requests its lawyers have compared to “harassment.”
O’Connor stepping down from the advertiser case follows news that Musk’s suit is already squeezing one of the lawsuit’s central players.
The brand safety initiative the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, known as GARM, announced it was folding in response to Musk’s suit.
GARM is led by the World Federation of Advertisers, which Musk is suing. In a statement, the federation said Musk’s legal action “caused a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances.”
The alliance was created in the wake of a 2019 video livestreamed on Facebook of a mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand. The effort was a way to make social media ad placement more transparent and to have a collective voice to stand up against violent and extreme content on platforms.
