According to reports, when Jack Smith approached Elon with a search warrant for Trump's Twitter account, Musk took a surprising route and actually informed Trump about the warrant against Smith's wishes.
Subsequently, Elon has been slapped with a $350k fine. Nevertheless, he is contending that his actions were protected by the First Amendment, asserting that he and his company had the right to communicate with their subscriber, Trump, regarding the warrant.
From Radar Online:
In a surprising development to come after Trump was indicted and pleaded not guilty to four criminal charges connected to his alleged efforts to overturn the election last week, it was revealed Smith’s team issued Elon Musk a search warrant for Trump’s Twitter account in January.
Twitter – now known as X – initially delayed complying with the warrant as it sought to block an order that prevented the social media company from disclosing the existence of the warrant to Trump, according to CNBC.
After Twitter completed the production of Trump's account information for Smith's office on February 9, the appeals court upheld a lower-court judge's $350,000 contempt sanction against the social media company for failing to comply with the warrant within the three-day deadline.
Smith's office argued that notifying Trump of the warrant's existence would have jeopardized the investigation and given him the chance to tamper with or destroy evidence.
Twitter appealed the contempt ruling and the non-disclosure order. Musk reportedly cited the company’s First Amendment rights to communicate with its subscriber, Trump, about the warrant.
The court also addressed Twitter's concern that being "kept in the dark" about the warrant would prevent Trump from asserting executive privilege to shield his communications made through his Twitter account from prosecutors.
Twitter argued that the non-disclosure order violated the federal Stored Communications Act.
However, the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously ruled against the company on all counts.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, this latest development comes after Smith issued two indictments against Trump.
Kudos to Elon; he certainly made the right call.
Moreover, a $350k fine is undoubtedly a mere drop in the bucket for Musk, who is presently worth billions.
