Cards Against Humanity, the irreverent party game company known for its provocative humor, has settled its trespassing lawsuit against SpaceX, one year after filing the complaint and launching a profanity-laced marketing campaign against Elon Musk’s rocket company.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Cards Against Humanity had been seeking $15 million, and had told supporters who helped it buy the land in question that it hoped to pay them as much as $100 each from the proceeds. But those supporters won’t receive cash; instead, they can sign up for a “brand new mini-pack of exclusive cards all about Elon Musk,” a special expansion for the popular party game, according to an email they’ve just received.
“We’re happy to have stood up to a bully like Musk. We’re happy to have forced a settlement,” Cards Against Humanity told TechCrunch in a statement. The company says SpaceX has removed its construction equipment and that Cards Against Humanity is “working to restore [the land] to its natural state: devoid of space garbage and pointless border walls.”
The dispute centered on a piece of land that Cards Against Humanity originally purchased in 2017. At the time, the company solicited 150,000 separate $15 donations ($2.25 million total) to purchase the land as part of a bid to stop Donald Trump from completing a border wall during his first administration.
The plot sits along the Rio Grande River in Cameron County, Texas — near the U.S.-Mexico border — and happened to be located right next to where SpaceX has been building out its Starbase rocket complex, a launch facility for the company’s spacecraft. That became an issue last year when Cards Against Humanity accused SpaceX of both trespassing on the property and of dumping construction equipment and material. (SpaceX and a lawyer for the rocket company did not respond to a request for comment.)
“Unfortunately, an even richer, more racist billionaire – Elon Musk – snuck up on us from behind and completely f—-d your land with gravel, tractors, and space garbage,” Cards Against Humanity told those same supporters in an email sent last year.
The gaming company sued SpaceX for $15 million, and promised to evenly distribute any award to those supporters — a maximum of $100 each. It even launched a website titled “www.ElonOwesYou100Dollars.com.”
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Cards Against Humanity said at the time that its “longstanding reputation as a company that makes outrageous promises and actually keeps them is on the line.” But it also warned those supporters in the email that “Musk has way more money and lawyers than we do, so you’ll probably get, like, $2 tops.”
Now, they won’t even get that amount.
“So while we can’t give you what you really wanted––cash money from Elon Musk––we’re going to make it up to you, our best, sexiest customers…with comedy!” the company wrote in the email sent on Monday, referring to the new mini-pack of cards.
The lawsuit had moved quickly. The two sides had already gone through the discovery process, where both parties exchange evidence before trial, and a trial was slated for November. Cards Against Humanity told TechCrunch on Monday that SpaceX even admitted to the trespass during discovery, which the gaming company called “a real vindication.”
Cards Against Humanity said Monday that it was “prepared to go to trial and we’re confident we would have won.” But the company ultimately decided that a trial “would have cost more than what we were likely to win from SpaceX.”
“Under Texas law, we likely wouldn’t be able to recoup our legal fees. We had the truth on our side, but Musk and SpaceX could easily outspend us,” the company said.
Musk is well-known for his willingness to fight his perceived enemies — and those of his companies — in court. He once claimed that Tesla’s “hardcore litigation department” would “never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose.”
Despite that, Musk and his companies often settle. The Cards Against Humanity case is not the first this year. Earlier this month, X settled a complaint filed by former Twitter executives. Tesla has settled a number of Autopilot-related cases. One Autopilot case that Tesla didn’t settle — despite having the chance to do so — became one of its highest-profile court losses to date.
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