Black Card: “We have terrible news. Seven years ago, 150,000 people paid us $15 to protect a pristine parcel of land on the US-Mexico border from racist billionaire Donald Trump’s very stupid wall. Unfortunately, an even richer, more racist billionaire, ………… snuck up on us from behind and completely fucked that land with gravel, tractors, and space garbage.”
White Card: Elon Musk, via SpaceX, the rocket company he uses to subsidize his stupid plan to colonize Mars for the Übermenschen.
In 2017, the guys behind the wildly successful party game Cards Against Humanity (CAH) crowdsourced $15 each from roughly 150,000 people to “purchase a plot of vacant land on the US/Mexico border and retain a law firm specializing in eminent domain to make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for Trump to build his preposterous wall.”
“Unfortunately, the United States government is more powerful than a comedy card game,” they conceded. “However, we’ll do everything we can to protest the wall and slow down the process of eminent domain. If Trump tries to build a wall on our land, we’ll be a big pain in the ass.”
And indeed, Trump was a “big pain in the ass,” and continues to be so. But with respect to the CAH plot in Texas, Elon Musk turned out to be an even bigger pain. According to a complaint filed in the District Court of Cameron County, SpaceX, which has a launch site just three miles away, cleared the land of vegetation, laid down hard gravel, and has been using it as a construction site for six months.
“After we caught him, SpaceX gave us a 12-hour ultimatum to accept a lowball offer for less than half our land’s value,” CAH wrote on a website announcing the suit. “We said, ‘Go fuck yourself, Elon Musk. We’ll see you in court.’”
The complaint alleges trespass, nuisance, unjust enrichment, and tortious interference with existing and prospective contracts and business
relationships. That last is a pretty good troll, since it’s exactly what Twitter alleged in the SLAPP suit against Media Matters for America for publishing screenshots of Nazi content next to ads for companies like IBM, Disney+, and Oracle. Twitter dragged Media Matters, which operates in DC, into federal court in Texas demanding to be made whole for the ensuing advertiser exodus, and it ensured that it got the case in front of Judge Reed O’Connor, one of the only judges in the country craven enough to deny a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.
Here, CAH claims reputational damage with the donors who subsidized the purchase of the land and demands at least $15 million.
“Musk, by allowing his company to wrongfully operate on CAH’s Property, casts the shadow of possible association between him and CAH,” they argue in the complaint. “Nothing could be more offensive to CAH nor more harmful to its reputation with its supporters.”
In addition to suing, CAH set up ElonOwesYou100Dollars.com, to publicize the effort.
If we win, we’ll equally split the lawsuit’s net proceeds among all 150,000 of our original subscribers, up to $100 each. While this isn’t enough to compensate our subscribers for the anguish they’ve suffered witnessing Elon Musk defile their once-verdant land⸺where wild horses galloped freely in the Texas moonlight⸺we think it’s a pretty good start.
“P.S. We will also accept Twitter.com as compensation,” they add.
It’s an excellent troll, and one which is guaranteed to drive the internet’s most brain-poisoned oligarch to lose his shit.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
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