Business
Judge allows Elon Musk’s ‘thermonuclear’ lawsuit against Media Matters to proceed
From LifeSiteNews
Elon Musk accuses Media Matters of manufacturing images to falsely accuse his social media platform X of putting advertisers next to Nazi content.
A federal judge has ruled that anti-woke, pro-free-speech tech mogul Elon Musk’s lawsuit against far-left Media Matters for America (MMFA) can proceed, keeping alive a “thermonuclear” challenge to the notorious organization’s practices that could set a major precedent.
Last November, Musk, the Tesla owner whose purchase of Twitter and transformation of it into X has upended left-wing activists’ monopoly on social media speech, filed a lawsuit against MMFA over an article it published accusing accusing Musk of having descended “into white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories,” and “placing ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast) next to content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.”
Musk responded that the article’s images were “manufactured” to create a false impression and “destroy” X. He vowed to launch a “thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” promising to hold accountable the group’s’ “board, their donors, their network of dark money, all of them.”
On August 29, Bush-appointed U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Judge Reed O’Connor rejected MMFA’s bid to have the suit dismissed.
“Plaintiff has provided sufficient allegations to survive dismissal,” he wrote. “Plaintiff has factually alleged: the existence of contracts subject to interference; intentional acts of interference; and proximate causation […] Plaintiff plausibly alleges that Defendants proximately caused their harm. Proximate cause requires proof of both cause-in-fact and foreseeability. Defendants present a compelling alternative version of events to Plaintiff’s. However, the Court will not ‘choose among competing inferences’ at this stage […] Accordingly, Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint alleges sufficient facts to state a claim of tortious interference with contract.”
Commenting on the ruling, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote that “Musk’s lawsuit may be the most defining for our age of advocacy journalism” because it “directly challenges the ability of media outlets to create false narratives to advance a political agenda.”
“The complaint accuses Media Matters of running its manipulation to produce extremely unlikely pairings, such that one toxic match appeared for ‘only one viewer (out of more than 500 million) on all of X: Media Matters,’” Turley explained. “In other words, the organization wanted to write a hit piece connecting X to pro-Nazi material and proceeded to artificially create pairings between that material and corporate advertisements. It then ran the story as news.”
“Indeed, two defendant employees of Media Matters did not deny that they were aware of the alleged manipulation and that they were seeking to poison the well for advertisers in order to drain advertising revenues for X,” he added.
Media Matters describes its mission as “comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media,” but conservatives say its true mission is to demonize conservative voices and promote leftist narratives and misinformation. Leftist billionaire George Soros has supported the organization with millions in donations since its birth in 2004, though he did not go public with his support until 2010.
Media Matters founder David Brock has described the organization’s mission as “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” against Fox News but has long since branched out to other major outlets deemed out of step with the Left. It has also advocated censoring conservatives on social networks such as Facebook, to which Musk’s purchase and transformation of Twitter stands in opposition.
In 2021, Media Matters was one of multiple left-wing groups that took credit for pressuring Facebook to ban LifeSiteNews, based on false claims of “COVID-19 and vaccine disinformation.”
Artificial Intelligence
Lawsuit Claims Google Secretly Used Gemini AI to Scan Private Gmail and Chat Data
By Ken Macon
Whether the claims are true or not, privacy in Google’s universe has long been less a right than a nostalgic illusion.
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When Google flipped a digital switch in October 2025, few users noticed anything unusual.
Gmail loaded as usual, Chat messages zipped across screens, and Meet calls continued without interruption.
Yet, according to a new class action lawsuit, something significant had changed beneath the surface.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
Plaintiffs claim that Google silently activated its artificial intelligence system, Gemini, across its communication platforms, turning private conversations into raw material for machine analysis.
The lawsuit, filed by Thomas Thele and Melo Porter, describes a scenario that reads like a breach of trust.
It accuses Google of enabling Gemini to “access and exploit the entire recorded history of its users’ private communications, including literally every email and attachment sent and received.”
The filing argues that the company’s conduct “violates its users’ reasonable expectations of privacy.”
Until early October, Gemini’s data processing was supposedly available only to those who opted in.
Then, the plaintiffs claim, Google “turned it on for everyone by default,” allowing the system to mine the contents of emails, attachments, and conversations across Gmail, Chat, and Meet.
The complaint points to a particular line in Google’s settings, “When you turn this setting on, you agree,” as misleading, since the feature “had already been switched on.”
This, according to the filing, represents a deliberate misdirection designed to create the illusion of consent where none existed.
There is a certain irony woven through the outrage. For all the noise about privacy, most users long ago accepted the quiet trade that powers Google’s empire.
They search, share, and store their digital lives inside Google’s ecosystem, knowing the company thrives on data.
The lawsuit may sound shocking, but for many, it simply exposes what has been implicit all along: if you live in Google’s world, privacy has already been priced into the convenience.
Thele warns that Gemini’s access could expose “financial information and records, employment information and records, religious affiliations and activities, political affiliations and activities, medical care and records, the identities of his family, friends, and other contacts, social habits and activities, eating habits, shopping habits, exercise habits, [and] the extent to which he is involved in the activities of his children.”
In other words, the system’s reach, if the allegations prove true, could extend into nearly every aspect of a user’s personal life.
The plaintiffs argue that Gemini’s analytical capabilities allow Google to “cross-reference and conduct unlimited analysis toward unmerited, improper, and monetizable insights” about users’ private relationships and behaviors.
The complaint brands the company’s actions as “deceptive and unethical,” claiming Google “surreptitiously turned on this AI tracking ‘feature’ without informing or obtaining the consent of Plaintiffs and Class Members.” Such conduct, it says, is “highly offensive” and “defies social norms.”
The case invokes a formidable set of statutes, including the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, the Stored Communications Act, and California’s constitutional right to privacy.
Google is yet to comment on the filing.
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Business
Nearly One-Quarter of Consumer-Goods Firms Preparing to Exit Canada, Industry CEO Warns Parliament
Standing Committee on Industry and Technology hears stark testimony that rising costs and stalled investment are pushing companies out of the Canadian market.
There’s a number that should stop this country cold: twenty-three percent. That is the share of companies in one of Canada’s essential manufacturing and consumer-goods sectors now preparing to withdraw products from the Canadian market or exit entirely within the next two years. And this wasn’t whispered at a business luncheon or buried in a consultancy memo. It was delivered straight to Parliament, at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, during its study on Canada’s underlying productivity gaps and capital outflow.
Michael Graydon, the CEO of Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada, didn’t hedge or soften the message. He told MPs, “23% of our members expect to exit products from the Canadian marketplace within the next two years, because the cost of doing business here has just become unsustainable.”
Unsustainable. That’s the word he used. And when the people who actually make things in this country start using that word, you should pay attention. These aren’t fringe players or hypothetical startups. These are firms that supply the goods Canadians buy every single day, and they’re looking at their balance sheets, their regulatory burdens, the delays in getting anything approved or built, and concluding that Canada simply doesn’t work for them anymore.
What makes this more troubling is the timing. Canada’s investment levels have been falling for years, even as the United States and other competitors race ahead. Businesses aren’t reinvesting in machinery or technology at the rate they once did. They’re not modernizing their operations here. They’re putting expansion plans on hold or shifting them to jurisdictions that move faster, cost less and offer clearer rules. That’s not ideology; it’s arithmetic. If it costs more to operate here, if it takes longer to get a permit, and if supply chains back up because ports and rail lines are jammed, investors will choose the place that doesn’t make growth a bureaucratic mountain climb.
Graydon raised another point that ought to concern anyone who cares about domestic production. Canada’s agrifood sector recorded a sixty-billion-dollar trade surplus last year, one of the brightest spots in the national economy, but according to him that potential is being “diluted by fragmented interprovincial trade and logistics bottlenecks.” The ports, the rail corridors, the entire transport network—choke points everywhere. And you can’t build a productive economy on choke points. Companies can’t scale, can’t guarantee delivery, can’t justify the costs. So they leave.
This twenty-three percent figure is the clearest evidence yet that the problem isn’t theoretical. It’s not something for think-tank panels or academic papers. It is happening at the level that matters most: the decision whether to continue doing business in Canada or move operations somewhere more predictable. And once those decisions are made, they’re very hard to reverse. Capital doesn’t boomerang back out of patriotism. It goes where it can earn a return.
For years, Canadian policymakers have talked about productivity as if it were a moral failing of workers or a mystical national characteristic. It’s neither. Productivity comes from investment—real money poured into equipment, technology, training and expansion. When investment stalls, productivity collapses. And when a quarter of firms in a major sector are already planning their exit, you are not looking at a temporary dip. You are looking at a structural rejection of the business environment itself.
The fact that executives are now openly warning Parliament that they cannot afford to stay is a moment of clarity. It is also a test. Either this country becomes a place where people can build things again—quickly, affordably, competitively—or it continues down the path that leads to empty factories, hollowed-out supply chains and consumers who wonder why the shelves look thinner every year.
Twenty-three percent is not just a statistic. It’s the sound of a warning bell ringing at full volume. The only question now is whether anyone in charge hears it.
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