In a courtroom nobody asked for and under a statute nobody’s sure exists, a federal magistrate has officially approved Elon Musk’s $100 million defamation lawsuit against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz — the first test of Trump’s Executive Order 8877, which classifies “saying mean stuff about Elon” as a federal offense and, in some jurisdictions, a hate crime.
The case stems from a March interview where Walz allegedly referred to Musk as “a low-rent Lex Luthor with a vape pen.” Witnesses claim the governor followed it up with a shrug and a comment about Tesla drivers being “just insecure men with strong Wi-Fi.”
Within hours, Musk’s legal team — a small army of Twitter lawyers, former Vine stars, and one guy from the PayPal Mafia still living in a submarine — filed a 267-page grievance accusing Walz of “irreparable harm to the fragile genius of the nation’s greatest living techno-visionary.”
“This is exactly why we had to codify Elon’s feelings into federal law,” said Trump White House Press Secretary Art Tubolls. “Executive Order 8877 ensures no one, especially a crusty Midwestern governor with a below-average follower count, gets away with damaging America’s most important brain.”
Signed in secret during a Truth Social live stream and reportedly drafted by a DoorDash driver who delivered McNuggets to Mar-a-Lago during a security breach, EO 8877 makes it a federal crime to “undermine the public perception, emotional stability, or stock price of Elon Musk, unless the person doing so is Joe Barron, who has special clearance.”
Governor Walz, for his part, seemed unaware of the executive order, or that he had said anything controversial at all. “I don’t even remember the interview,” Walz said from his St. Paul office. “Are we really doing this?”
Yes, Governor. Yes, we are.
The magistrate overseeing the case, Judge Carrie-Anne Sidebottom, ruled the lawsuit could proceed under the Elon Musk Ego Stabilization Clause, a part of EO 8877 that grants Musk legal standing to sue anyone who “causes emotional wobbliness” or “disrespects Neuralink with their mouth words.”
Musk, speaking from a hoverchair made entirely of carbon fiber and undeserved self-confidence, told reporters, “I’ve suffered immense reputational damage. People used to think I was Tony Stark. Now I’m getting compared to Lex Luthor, who, last I checked, doesn’t even have a flamethrower company.”
Sources inside DOGE (Department of Governmental Ethics, now a SpaceX subsidiary) confirmed that a full audit of Walz’s communications has been initiated. “We’re going through all his emails, texts, and MySpace messages,” said DOGE Deputy Director Joe Barron. “If we find a single meme mocking Elon’s hairline, it’s game over.”
Critics of the lawsuit argue that it violates both the First Amendment and the basic tenets of reality. But in Trump’s post-2024 America, reality is now considered a deep state construct.
“Elon’s feelings matter more than your freedom,” said newly appointed Federal Feelings Czar Pam Bondi, who also filed an amicus brief demanding a nationwide ban on Tesla memes. “He’s like if Benjamin Franklin and a Wi-Fi router had a baby. We protect that.”
Meanwhile, Walz has retained legal counsel from the Minnesota branch of the ACLU and a guy named Clancy who once won a defamation case against a Dairy Queen manager. Their plan? Argue that Walz’s comments fall under “classic Midwestern sarcasm,” which is protected under the Free Speech Through Passive-Aggression Clause of the Constitution (allegedly Article VII and a half).
At press time, Trump was considering expanding EO 8877 to include “anyone who doesn’t like X,” referring to the social media site formerly known as Twitter, now mostly used by Elon, Elon bots, and someone pretending to be JFK Jr. in a NASCAR helmet.
God Bless America.
