Supreme Court will not hear appeal from Elon Musk’s X platform over warrant in Trump case

X says order that blocked it from telling Trump about election-interference case against former president violated First Amendment rights

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Elon Musk and Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday. On Monday the Supreme Court said it will not hear an appeal from Elon Musk’s X platform over a warrant in Trump’s election-interference case. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:40am, 8 Oct 2024Updated: 2:56am, 8 Oct 2024

The Supreme Court said on Monday it will not hear an appeal from the social media platform X over a search warrant prosecutors obtained in the election-interference case against former US president Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their reasoning and there were no noted dissents.

The company, known as Twitter before it was bought by billionaire Elon Musk, says a nondisclosure order that blocked it from telling Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The company also argues Trump should have had a chance to exert executive privilege. If not reined in, the government could use similar tactics to invade other privileged communications, their lawyers argued.

Two non-partisan electronic privacy groups also weighed in, encouraging the High Court to take the case on First Amendment grounds.

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Prosecutors, though, say the company never showed Trump had used the account for official purposes so executive privilege would not be an issue. A lower court also found that telling Trump could have jeopardised the investigation.