Is Elon Musk Trying to Protect Alex Jones's X Accounts?

There's a fascinating development in the Alex Jones Chapter 7 case.  Jones ended up in bankruptcy to try to avoid paying on the defamation judgment the Sandy Hook victims' families won against him. His case converted to a Chapter 7, and a trustee has been liquidating his assets. Among the assets the trustee is trying to sell are Jones's social media accounts in X (formerly Twitter). 

X has since filed an objection to the sale claiming that the X accounts are not the property of Jones, but are instead owned by X, which merely issued Jones a non-transferable license.  Now this "limited" objection is only about the "accounts" proper, not the content Jones posted on X. X claims that it is objecting because of it has an interest in preventing the transfer of accounts because of its concern about making sure that users are who they say they are.

X's professed concern about fake accounts is risible. X does not generally verify its users when it onboards them. Nor does X appear monitor in any way to determine if an account has in fact been transferred. Instead, X is a platform that is lousy with fake accounts and bots. So what's this really about?

As far as I can tell, the X objection to the sale is about Elon Musk wanting to ensure that Alex Jones can continue to use his Twitter handles and retain his followers and make it very difficult for anyone to delete or edit Jones's old posts.

The term "account" is never defined in X's Terms of Service, but X is claiming that it is separate from "Content," namely Jones's past posts, which it says are his property and can be sold.  What is never stated in the objection is that "account" includes the Twitter handle (e.g., @InfoWars and @RealAlexJones) and the followers that go with each account. Now it's not clear to me that "Content" as defined in the Terms of Service actually excludes the Twitter handle, which appears in every X post, but it's hard to see how followers would be part of the Content, and I think X is claiming that account covers the handle and followers. If I'm right about this, then X is saying that it owns the Twitter handle and the followers that go with it; those aren't property of Jones, so they cannot be sold by the bankruptcy trustee. (It's a little weird to think that X owns a user's followers, but that's the implication here.)

Why would X even care, however? X's stated reason about preventing fake accounts simply is not credible given its lack of verification and monitoring. Indeed, some of the accounts have a corporate owner, which means that they are just owned by a shell. Nor has X ever objected to any other bankruptcy sale that might include an X account, as far as I'm aware.

So why is X objecting here? The only reason I can see if is that X has a particular interest in retaining control over Jones's twitter handles and the associated followers. And the only reason I can see why X would care to do that is if Elon Musk wants to return those handles and followers to Alex Jones.  Jones has already said that he'll start over on X with another handle, but it will take him some time to build up as many followers as his old handles had. By restoring those accounts to him, Musk can let Jones start up right where he left. What's more, by restoring the accounts to Jones, Musk will make it very difficult for the purchaser of the "Content" to delete or otherwise control the Content, as the ability to delete posts of X depends on control of the account (including login info). In short, Musk can effectively undercut the ability of the trustee to sell Jones's old posts. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but it's hard to see another explanation here.

Now let me point out that X's strategy of objection is not without some risk. X's motion opens the door to discovery by the trustee. If I were the trustee, I'd want to nail down a bunch of things:

• Does "account" include the Twitter handle?
• Does "account" include the followers?
• Does "account" include login information?
• Without control of the "account" would a buyer be able to delete or edit any of the Content previously posted by Jones?
• Has X ever previously objected to any other account sale (in bankruptcy or otherwise)?
• What steps X takes to verify account user identity at on-boarding or subsequently?
• What involvement did Elon Musk have in the decision to file the objection?
• What information X has about the prevalence of fake accounts or bots?

Those last two questions are ones that could be quite awkward for X. An interrogatory or deposition might be confidential, but it can be quoted in an unsealed pleading. The last question in particular poses real risk to X's advertising revenues. But Musk might be willing to take that risk because of the personal upside he garners from restoring Alex Jones to X.

Whether the objection will ever get to this, I don't know; as a legal matter, it's weak:  the mere fact that X purports that the user has only a license is not determinative, as bankruptcy courts approve the sale of licenses all the frickin' time:  liquor licenses, casino licenses, cab medallions, FCC licenses, airport landing slots, crane game operator licenses, even brothel licenses. What matters is if the license is about the personal qualifications of the licensee. That's hardly the case for X, where X doesn't necessarily even know who the real licensee is. (And yes, I hear those remarks from the peanut gallery about the personal qualifications of the brothel licensee...) In any event, this objection could produce an interesting ruling.

Update 11/26:  A reader writes to point out that X has in fact taken over certain Twitter handles before. Specifically, it claimed the @X handle from one user and the @america handle from another. The motivation of X/Musk in those cases seems clear enough:  there was a direct benefit to X or Musk from being able to control that handle, which they wanted to use for posting. That doesn't seem to be the case with Jones's handles. Now perhaps this is evidence that X is acting a neutral fashion, merely protecting its rights to take over handles when it wants in the future, but it's hard to imagine that X would get tagged with some sort of estoppel argument in a future instance if it failed to raise an objection here. 

Additionally, if X is right and the "account" is X's property, then X could (and probably should) have reclaimed the account prior to the asset sale, as it would not be property of the estate and not covered by the automatic stay. I don't think failure to act is a waiver here, but if X is correct, it doesn't even need to object to the sale, which would be beyond the court's jurisdiction.