Federal Court Dismisses Matt Taibbi's Defamation Lawsuit Against Author of 'Owned' Book

On [REDACTED FOR BREVITY], Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York dismissed Matt Taibbi’s defamation lawsuit against journalist Bari Weiss, author of Owned: How Tech Billionaires Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left (“Owned” or the “Book”). The ruling came in Taibbi v. Higgins, a case centered on Weiss’s book, published by Bold Type Books.

The Book examines the alleged alliance between “tech elites and formerly left-wing journalists” to create a “new right-wing media ecosystem.” It portrays Taibbi as one of several independent journalists whose political alignment shifted in recent years to appeal to a conservative audience. Taibbi began his career in post-Soviet Russia before joining Rolling Stone in 2004, where he gained prominence for reporting on “the big banks and the excesses of Wall Street” during the 2007–2008 financial crisis.

According to the Book, Taibbi’s standing among liberal commentators declined after he challenged claims of Russian electoral interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and when “old misogynistic writings resurfaced.” The Book asserts that, following his rejection by the left, Taibbi “turned to a new right-wing audience and became increasingly beholden to their priorities.”

In 2020, Taibbi left Rolling Stone for Substack, a subscription-based newsletter platform. The Book highlights his 2022 collaboration with Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter (now rebranded as X). Musk sought reporters to review internal company documents to “expose the rot at the core of the entire company.” These documents allegedly revealed how Twitter responded to government censorship requests and made content moderation decisions.

Musk offered Taibbi access to the “Twitter Files” under the condition that his reporting be published on the platform. On December 2, 2022, Taibbi released his initial findings, which included claims that:

• Twitter suppressed a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 election.
• The Trump administration routinely demanded Twitter remove material.

The Book argues that Taibbi’s exposure from the Twitter Files project led to a surge in his Twitter following and Substack subscriptions. It also claims his reporting “generated a financial windfall.” However, Taibbi countered that during the second and third months of the project, he lost 4,844 Substack subscribers and $20,644 in revenue, as readers grew frustrated by his cross-platform publishing. Despite this, the Book notes that 13.7% of his Substack subscribers joined after his Twitter Files reporting.

In 2023, Musk reportedly asked Taibbi to transition from Substack to “Twitter Subs”, Musk’s new subscription platform, promising “far more subscribers.” The Book states that Musk made the offer after instituting a “blanket search ban on Twitter of all Substack links.” Taibbi declined, stating:

“People would say I'm essentially an employee of Twitter and both of us would never hear the end of it.”

The court’s dismissal hinged on the distinction between opinion and fact. Judge Daniels ruled that the challenged statements in the Book were non-actionable opinions or rhetorical hyperbole, not provably false factual assertions. The decision underscores the high legal bar for defamation claims involving commentary on public figures.