United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ____________ United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit No. 24-10900 ____________ FILED October 20, 2024 X Corp., Lyle W. Cayce Clerk Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus Media Matters for America; Eric Hananoki; Angelo Carusone,

Defendants—Appellants. ______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas USDC No. 4:23-CV-1175 ______________________________ Before Smith, Graves, and Engelhardt, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: Media Matters, Inc., appeals the district court’s discovery order com- pelling it to disclose its donors’ information and communications. We grant Media Matters’s motion for stay pending appeal.

I. In November 2023, X Corp. sued Media Matters, Inc., Eric Hananoki, and Angelo Carusone (collectively, “Media Matters”) for (1) interfering with X Corp.’s contract, (2) disparaging X Corp’s business, and (3) interfer- Case: 24-10900 Document: 48-1 Page: 2 Date Filed: 10/20/2024

No. 24-10900

ing with X Corp.’s prospective economic advantage. X Corp. alleges that Media Matters “knowingly and maliciously” manipulated images to “por- tray X Corp. as a social media platform dominated by neo-Nazism and anti- Semitism,” which “alienate[d] major advertisers, publishers, and users from X.” In discovery, X Corp. requested that Media Matters produce the iden- tity of donors, their addresses, and its communications with them. Relevant to this appeal are X Corp.’s Requests for Production 17, 18, 21, and 35: Request for Production 17. Documents sufficient to show the identity of all Your donors or any others who provide financial support of any kind, their residence, the time and place of their donation or provision of financial support, and the amount of their donations or other financial support. Request for Production 18. Any document or communication reflecting Your attempts to solicit donations or financial sup- port of any kind, including but not limited to any discussions with any donors or any others who provided, considered pro- viding, or were asked to provide financial support of any kind. Request for Production 21. All documents and communica- tions regarding Your sources of funding for research, investiga- tion, reporting, publication, or any other work related to X, the Platform, Elon Musk, or Linda Yaccarino. Request for Production 35. All materials regarding or commun- ications with any donor or potential donor to Media Matters mentioning or regarding in any way this Matter, Elon Musk, Linda Yaccarino, X, Twitter, or the Platform, including mis- information, brand safety, or ad pairing on the Platform. X Corp. moved to compel Media Matters to produce responsive doc- uments, but the district court deferred ruling on those four requests. Recog- nizing Media Matters’s potential First Amendment concerns, the court

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