Alex Spiro, Elon Musk’s private lawyer, may very well be sanctioned over his conduct throughout a latest deposition with the billionaire — if the lawyer dealing with off towards him in a authorized battle will get his means.
Musk was deposed final month for a lawsuit towards the X proprietor that alleges Musk boosted a conspiracy principle that falsely affiliated 22-year-old Ben Brody with a neo-Nazi group.
In a courtroom submitting from Monday, Brody’s lawyer, Mark Bankston — who famously represented the dad and mom of a Sandy Hook sufferer and received a $45 million defamation case against Alex Jones — argued that Spiro had demonstrated “astonishingly unprofessional” habits and “critically overstepped his bounds” throughout the deposition, Bloomberg first reported.
Spiro repeatedly lower off Bankston’s line of questioning and tried to make enjoyable of Bankston, the lawyer wrote in his sanctions movement, in response to Bloomberg.
Spiro pushed again on the movement in an emailed remark to Enterprise Insider.
“That is novice hour,” Spiro informed BI. “I perceive this lawyer needs his quarter-hour of fame, however these shakedown ways will not work.”
Within the movement, Bankston claims Spiro was the one protection lawyer current on the deposition regardless that he isn’t licensed to follow regulation in Texas, in response to Bloomberg’s report. The movement indicated that within the Texas case, two different legal professionals who’re permitted to follow within the state have additionally represented Musk, the publication mentioned. Spiro is a associate on the New York workplace of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
If a choose agrees with the movement, a sanction on Spiro may end in a dressing down by the choose or probably a superb.
Issues received heated between the 2 legal professionals, the deposition transcript reveals
Musk’s lawyer initially tried to forestall the transcript from the deposition from being launched to the general public, however a choose denied his movement, HuffPost first reported on Monday.
When defendants are deposed in a civil trial, issues can typically get contentious. At a number of factors within the deposition, Spiro and Bankston traded barbs.
Spiro objected to a number of questions Bankston posed to Musk, together with the lawyer’s first query round whether or not the billionaire felt he’d accomplished “something mistaken” to Brody.
“Okay. This is not a query you are allowed to ask by the Courtroom, so we’re not going to do that, Mark, or this deposition goes to be over earlier than it begins,” Spiro mentioned, including in a while that if Bankston wished to ask that query he’d must “go see the choose.”
In response, Bankston quoted Texas case regulation.
“You simply confirmed your playing cards that this case is DOA and you’ll’t simply get him speaking as you set it,” Spiro mentioned in response.
Spiro additionally accused Bankston of yelling throughout the deposition. Musk received in on the dispute as properly at one level, telling Bankston to “calm your self.”
“I’ve not often met a lawyer with much less decorum than you, for those who may very well be known as a lawyer,” Musk mentioned to Bankston.
At one other level, Bankston appeared to inform Spiro to relax.
“Yeah, let’s go forward and take a breath, Alex. To begin with, I do know you are not a Texas lawyer,” Bankston mentioned after Spiro informed his consumer to not reply considered one of his questions within the deposition.
In response, Spiro mentioned Bankston was lecturing on Texas regulation.
“This is not — this is not productive,” Spiro mentioned. “You need to go ask one other query, go ask one other query. You are lecturing.”
At one other level, Spiro accused the plaintiff’s lawyer of bringing forth “frivolous” lawsuits.
“You retain submitting these foolish, frivolous shake-down circumstances, I will maintain attempting to think about Texas legal professionals to deliver to your depositions,” Spiro mentioned.
Each attorneys have been concerned in some high-profile circumstances. Spiro is Musk’s go-to private lawyer and even helped the billionaire win a defamation lawsuit in 2019 after Musk known as a diver who helped rescue a gaggle of boys stranded in a collapse Thailand, a “pedo man.”
Bankston, however, is thought for representing Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the dad and mom of Sandy Hook sufferer Jesse Lewis, who was killed with 25 others within the 2012 taking pictures. The dad and mom received a defamation lawsuit towards Alex Jones in 2022, with a jury awarding $4.1 million to the dad and mom in compensatory damages together with a $45.2 million ruling towards Jones for punitive damages.
Bankston didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.