{"id":62924,"date":"2026-06-22T23:27:52","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T15:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=62924"},"modified":"2026-06-22T23:27:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T15:27:52","slug":"singapore-court-halts-x-corp-defamation-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=62924","title":{"rendered":"Singapore court halts X Corp defamation suit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013 <!-- -->The High Court has stayed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/x-subsidiary-sues-american-media-watchdog-in-singapore-following-lawsuits-in-us-ireland?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">defamation lawsuit filed in Singapore<\/span><\/a> by a subsidiary of Elon Musk\u2019s social media company X Corp against a non-profit United States media monitoring site.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In a judgment on June 19, Judicial Commissioner Low Siew Ling said Singapore was the wrong place to hear the case, which arose from an article published by the defendant, Media Matters for America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">She said the Texas court, where a trial is scheduled to start in March 2027 over the same article, was \u201cclearly and distinctly the more appropriate forum\u201d to resolve the claims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">On Nov 16, 2023, Media Matters published an article on its website which said that advertisements from major brands had been placed alongside pro-Nazi content on the X platform.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Musk, who recently became the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/business\/spacex-ipo-makes-elon-musk-the-worlds-first-trillionaire?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">world\u2019s first trillionaire <\/span><\/a>following the Nasdaq debut of his aerospace company SpaceX, had then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/world\/middle-east\/x-corp-to-file-lawsuit-against-media-watchdog-others-musk?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">vowed a \u201cthermonuclear lawsuit\u201d <\/span><\/a>against Media Matters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">His public threat of legal action followed moves by major companies such as Apple and IBM to pause advertising on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">On Nov 20, 2023, X Corp filed a lawsuit in a US district court in Texas against Media Matters and the reporter who wrote the article. The organisation\u2019s chief executive was later added as a defendant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">This was followed by a lawsuit filed on Dec 6, 2023, in Ireland\u2019s High Court. The lawsuit for defamation and malicious falsehood was filed by X Corp\u2019s Irish subsidiary, an entity named Twitter International Unlimited.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">More than seven months later, on July 23, 2024, the Singapore case was filed by X Corp\u2019s Singapore subsidiary, an entity named Twitter Asia Pacific (TAP).<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">TAP, which deals with advertising clients in the Asia-Pacific region, sought special damages of US$26 million (S$33.6 million) in lost advertising revenue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Media Matters responded by challenging the jurisdiction of the Singapore court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">On Oct 24, 2025, an assistant registrar concluded that the Singapore court was not the appropriate forum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">TAP, which was represented by Mr Andy Leck from Wong &amp; Leow, appealed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">It argued that the offending statements had been published in Singapore and that it had suffered damage in Singapore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Media Matters, represented by Ms Lin Shumin from Drew &amp; Napier, maintained that the US was the appropriate place to hear the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The judge agreed that the case has very close links to the US.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The article was written and published in the US, the X platform is operated from the US, and the vast majority of the relevant witnesses and evidence is located there.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Having so many witnesses fly into Singapore to testify would be costly, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cThis would place a particular strain on the respondent, which is a non-profit entity and, unlike the appellant, not part of a large and well-financed corporate group,\u201d said the judge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The judge added that there was also insufficient evidence to show that the article was published in Singapore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">She said that the parallel proceedings in Texas cover substantially the same issues and are at a much more advanced stage, with more than 400,000 documents disclosed and a trial expected to start on March 29, 2027.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/spore-high-court-halts-defamation-suit-filed-by-x-corp-says-case-should-be-heard-in-us\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE \u2013 The High Court has stayed a defamation lawsuit filed in Singapore by a subsidiary of Elon Musk\u2019s social media company X Corp against&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}