Matt Taibbi, the left-leaning journalist known for his acerbic writing and contrarian who has become a right-wing pundit cosplaying as a free speech warrior, had his defamation lawsuit against me thrown out of court on Tuesday. But winning was never his goal.
When Taibbi filed the complaint last November against me and Hachette, the publisher of my book, “Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left,” it was a serious cause for concern. I wracked my brain trying to think of what I could have gotten wrong — then I read the sloppily written and argued initial legal complaint. Taibbi and his lawyer, Robert Garson, who represented President Donald Trump in his frivolous lawsuit against journalist Bob Woodward (dismissed by a judge in July 2025), would soon file an amended complaint that targeted some out of context language and presented it as proof that I was making claims I was not. But that argument didn’t stand up to scrutiny, it was the one dismissed this week.
It’s hard to view Taibbi’s defamation suit as anything other than a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP. These are meritless suits aimed at silencing critics.
In “Owned,” I detail how tech billionaires, angry about the state of critical mainstream and independent media, have used their fortunes to try to buy up parts of the business. Those independent journalists who go along with the conservative project often find themselves benefitting, whether from added reach, opportunities to address conferences or contracts. Taibbi’s journey from upstart expat magazine scribe in Russia to Elon Musk’s mouthpiece for spreading the “Twitter Files,” highly curated internal documents from the company that the billionaire used to push his version of an out of control internal bureaucracy at the social media company prior to his taking it over in 2022, is part of that story.
Unsurprisingly, such a critical look at Taibbi did not go over well. He was far from the only target in the book. Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the NSA leak story in 2014 and has subsequently become a right-wing affiliated commentator, takes up the bulk of the narrative — but Taibbi has proven, thus far, the thinnest-skinned.
It’s hard to view Taibbi’s defamation suit as anything other than a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP. These are meritless suits aimed at silencing critics and have led to anti-SLAPP laws in states such as New York and California. The New York anti-SLAPP law is likely why Taibbi filed his lawsuit in federal court, the Southern District of New York, rather than in state court.
For opponents of free speech like Taibbi, the purpose is not necessarily to win a judgement. These censorious busybodies are willing to endure losses in order to tamp down on the speech of their adversaries, betting that the cost and stress of ongoing litigation will make them think twice rather than continue their attacks. (Trump does it all the time, and he has for decades.) The message being sent to other would-be critics: write truthfully about these litigious anti-speech warriors, and you too could find yourselves in court.
The case is part of an ongoing downfall for Taibbi, who has puffed himself up throughout his career as a noble, contrarian advocate of free speech and free expression — unafraid to take on conventional wisdom in his quest for the truth. His reporting on the financial crisis from 2008 to 2010 broke down the details of macroeconomics for a lay audience who were wondering how the global system was collapsing. A decade ago, as most of the mainstream press embraced Russiagate and went all in on tying Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Taibbi looked for the holes in the story in an admirable attempt to parse out the truth.
In recent years he’s drifted to the right and become fixated on conservative culture war issues. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Taibbi spread anti-vaccine conspiracies and embraced alternative, untested cures to the disease, all while embracing the right-wing movement that would eventually become Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s “Make American Healthy Again” coalition. He has been critical of transgender rights activists and often targets New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for his affinity for socialism.
The message being sent to other would-be critics: write truthfully about these litigious anti-speech warriors, and you too could find yourselves in court.
The one-time opponent of state power has become a darling of the Republican Party, often called on to appear as a witness by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in the House and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in the Senate. He’s chummily rubbed shoulders with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who he once described as an “incurable skin condition.” No surprise he used one of Trump’s lawyers to sue me and Hachette.
All of that is his right. But as a public figure, he cannot expect to escape criticism for his ideological shift. Suing one of his most outspoken critics simply shows the ideological emptiness of trying to fit square peg into the round hole of his self-image.
In January, Taibbi penned an essay for The Free Press, the online magazine founded by fellow free speech hypocrite Bari Weiss, saying that by suing me, he was in fact standing up for the First Amendment. A blog post I wrote about the suit “set off a wave of jeers from the online left-wing peanut gallery, who claim to think my legal challenge clashes with my avowed commitment to freedom of speech,” Taibbi wrote in what is perhaps an unintentional exposure of the real issue — conservatives prefer to yell than be yelled at, and see the latter as anathema to a free society.
For those of us who value freedom of expression and the American value of standing up to the powerful, it’s a good outcome, the dismissal of Taibbi’s suit this week is a good sign for free speech in the U.S. It shows that a powerful man can’t wield the legal system as a weapon against his critics and be assured a victory. We still live in enough of a free society that you can’t buy a verdict.
But while today’s legal win is a welcome development, I can’t be sure that Taibbi won’t appeal it. He has more than enough money to keep the case going and drag myself and Hachette into court again in order to send a message.
Criticism of the powerful is key to a free society. If people like Taibbi can continue to use the legal system to intimidate and harass their ideological opponents — no matter how they dress it up as a defense of free speech — then they have found a loophole to the First Amendment. It’s up to all of us to refuse to be intimidated, and continue to confront power.
Eoin Higgins
Eoin Higgins is a writer based in New England. His book, "Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left," is available now.