X Sued Media Matters on November 20, 2023. The September 2, 2026 Order Was About Discovery.

A complaint is an allegation. An order that denies a motion to dismiss accepts the pleading as true for that motion. It is not a finding that the article was false, and it is not a judgment. A discovery order in 2026 means the case was still in discovery on the day of that order.

The platform is X. This page sits on the lawsuits desk. The 2022 merger case is a different docket: Twitter v. Musk.

What’s confirmed

November 20, 2023: the filing, and the courtroom

The CourtListener docket for X Corp. v. Media Matters for America, No. 4:23-cv-01175, in the Northern District of Texas, lists the case filed November 20, 2023. The nature of suit is 190, contract, other. The cause is diversity. The plaintiff demanded a jury. The docket entry that day is a complaint with jury demand by X Corp. The filing-fee receipt number on that entry is ATXNDC-14187784.

A November 21, 2023 note says the case was filed to Judge Mark Pittman. A November 28, 2023 entry says Judge Pittman recused and the clerk reassigned the case to Judge Reed C. O’Connor. Later filings use 4:23-cv-01175-O. The Fort Worth division is the heading on the orders below.

Defendants on the docket include Media Matters for America and Eric Hananoki from the start. An amended complaint was filed February 27, 2024. The August 29, 2024 order, below, names a third defendant, Angelo Carusone.

Label: The docket. CourtListener’s copy, when this desk read it, said it was last updated March 23, 2026, and that the last known filing was March 19, 2026. A September 2026 order exists on Justia and is not in that snapshot. The snapshot is stale relative to the order. It is still the docket this desk used for the 2023 and 2024 entries.

What the August 29, 2024 order says the complaint alleges

Judge O’Connor’s August 29, 2024 order, Document 82, denies the defendants’ March 8, 2024 motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, improper venue, and failure to state a claim. The order says its recitation of facts is taken from the amended complaint, and that at this stage those facts “are taken as true and viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.”

The order says X brought the action for interference with contract, business disparagement, and interference with prospective economic advantage. It says the plaintiff alleges that the defendants “knowingly and maliciously fabricated side-by-side images” of advertisers’ posts next to “neo-Nazi or other extremist content,” and portrayed those images “as if they were what the average user experiences” on X. It says the plaintiff asserts that the defendants did this to portray X as dominated by neo-Nazism and antisemitism and to alienate advertisers, publishers, and users.

On venue, the order says the plaintiff alleged that AT&T, “headquartered in the Northern District,” was one of the advertisers targeted. The order finds personal jurisdiction, finds venue proper, and says the plaintiff “has properly pled its claims.” It denies the motion.

An earlier order, on February 28, 2024, had denied the first motion to dismiss and a motion to stay discovery “for mootness,” after the amended complaint. A January 22, 2024 scheduling order had set a trial docket beginning January 6, 2025. The case did not end on that date. The later orders on this page are 2024, 2025, and 2026.

Label: The order’s account of the amended complaint. “Fabricated” and “maliciously” are the pleading, as the court summarized it for a motion to dismiss. The denial means the claims were allowed to proceed. The order says many of the facts “are disputed” and that the court would not choose between competing inferences at that stage. A denial of a motion to dismiss is not a finding that any advertisement ran beside any post, and it is not a damages award.

The Fifth Circuit stay, and what happened after argument

The Fifth Circuit docket, No. 24-10900, says the appeal was filed from the Northern District case. A notice of appeal was filed October 1, 2024. The appeal was docketed October 2, 2024. An October 20, 2024 docket entry says a published opinion granted a stay pending appeal: “The district court’s September 27, 2024, order compelling production is STAYED pending further order of this court.”

The same docket says oral argument was heard February 18, 2025, before Judges Clement, Graves, and Willett. A July 15, 2025 entry says the court placed the appeal in abeyance pending a decision in the district court case. A September 22, 2025 entry says a district court order of September 16, 2025, concerned a motion to transfer venue. This desk did not open that September 16 order. A March 23, 2026 entry grants a motion to withdraw as counsel. The docket’s last-known-filing line, when read, was March 23, 2026. No opinion deciding the appeal on the merits was in the entries this desk read.

Label: The appeals docket. The stay is of a September 27, 2024 production order. It is not a ruling on whether the lawsuit was properly filed in Fort Worth. The opinion’s full text, beyond that docket line, was not the document read. “In abeyance” is the July 15, 2025 entry. An appeal in abeyance is not a reversal and not an affirmance.

September 2, 2026: a discovery order, not a judgment

Judge O’Connor’s September 2, 2026 opinion, Document 362, grants in part and denies in part the defendants’ motion to compel, ECF No. 287, filed April 21, 2026. The order says the motion sought source-code-related documents. It limits the granted requests to November 2023. The requests it walks through are numbered 120, 122, 126, 127, and 132, covering technical documentation, quality-assurance material, configuration files, version-control records, and labeling metadata, as the order describes them. Outside November 2023, the motion is denied.

The order repeats the complaint’s allegations in a background section and says that recitation is taken from the amended complaint. It does not enter judgment for either side.

Label: A discovery ruling. The case was still being litigated on September 2, 2026. November 2023 is the court’s limit on those requests. It is the month of the lawsuit, not a finding about what any reader saw.

A related case, in a different court

X Corp. v. Center for Countering Digital Hate, Inc., No. 23-cv-03836-CRB, in the Northern District of California, is not this Fort Worth case. Judge Charles R. Breyer’s order granting CCDH’s motion to dismiss and to strike says X alleged that CCDH took “a series of unlawful acts” to gain access to X data and then “cherry-pick[ed]” posts to claim the platform was overwhelmed with harmful content, in order to push advertisers to stop spending. The order says X alleged “at least tens of millions of dollars” in lost advertising and other costs. Those sentences are the court’s account of the complaint. The order’s own conclusion is that the court strikes the breach-of-contract and tort claims under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. A Justia docket entry dates that order to March 25, 2024. The signature block was not in the text extract this desk read. The filing date used here is that docket entry.

The Fifth Circuit docket records a December 23, 2025 letter from X about a Ninth Circuit decision. This desk did not open that Ninth Circuit opinion.

Label: A different lawsuit, against different defendants, that ended at the pleading stage in the order this desk read. “At least tens of millions of dollars” is an allegation the California order recites and then rejects as a damages theory. It is not a sum found in the Texas case.

Claims and open questions

No order this desk read decides whether Media Matters’s November 2023 article was true or false. The Texas case’s allegations remain allegations. The August 29, 2024 order says they were well enough pleaded to proceed, on the assumption that a motion to dismiss requires.

CourtListener’s district-court mirror did not show the September 2, 2026 order. Justia did. This page does not know what was filed between March 19, 2026, and that September order, beyond the April 21, 2026 motion the order itself describes.

The September 16, 2025 transfer order was not opened. This page does not say whether venue was transferred. The September 2, 2026 order is still captioned in the Fort Worth division, before Chief District Judge Reed O’Connor.

A suit against advertisers or an advertising association was not a complaint this desk opened. It is not summarized here.

On the map

X is the platform. The European Commission’s file is a different proceeding. The Brazil orders are a different record. The lawsuits desk is the section.

Sources

Checked October 20, 2026.