In a fresh clash between tech titans and state regulators, Elon Musk’s X Corp has launched a legal offensive against New York, arguing that the state’s new hate speech transparency law is nothing short of a constitutional overreach.
Filed in federal court in Manhattan, the lawsuit takes direct aim at the Stop Hiding Hate Act, a recently enacted state law that forces social media companies to outline how they police hate speech, extremism, misinformation, harassment, and foreign meddling. X claims the law tramples on free speech rights and sets a dangerous precedent by compelling platforms to report what the state may deem “objectionable,” effectively strong-arming them into government-approved moderation.
“The government doesn’t get to decide where the line falls in a debate as messy and deeply subjective as online speech,” X argued in its complaint. The company warns that being forced to expose “highly sensitive and controversial” content policies under the threat of lawsuits and up to $15,000 in daily fines amounts to unconstitutional coercion.
At the heart of the legal dispute is whether the government can demand visibility into how platforms handle speech without stepping on the First Amendment. X draws parallels to a similar California law that was partially blocked last year for overstepping free speech protections—California eventually agreed not to enforce the measure in a legal truce.
New York’s version, however, is still standing. Authored by Democrats Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Grace Lee, with input from the Anti-Defamation League, the law was signed in December by Governor Kathy Hochul. Its backers defend it as a necessary safeguard against unregulated digital platforms with the power to sway public discourse and stoke violence.
Hoylman-Sigal and Lee didn’t mince words in response to the lawsuit, calling Musk’s resistance proof of the law’s relevance. “The fact that Elon Musk would go to these lengths to avoid disclosing straightforward information to New Yorkers,” they said, “shows exactly why this legislation is needed.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, listed as the defendant, has yet to respond publicly.
Musk, who scrapped most of Twitter’s moderation policies after acquiring the company for $44 billion in 2022, has positioned himself as a die-hard free speech advocate. Critics, however, see that stance as a smokescreen for fostering unregulated spaces where harmful content can thrive.
Now, as X Corp v. James unfolds in the Southern District of New York (Case No. 25-05068), the battle lines are drawn: at stake is not just the fate of one law, but the broader power struggle over who gets to control the digital town square.
