Elon Musk breaks silence over Johnny Depp, Amber Heard trial

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has broken his silence about his observations about the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial, which finished with closing arguments Friday.

Musk, whose name repeatedly surfaced throughout the trial as someone who dated Heard after her marriage, remained objective and respectful, saying he only wants the best for both parties involved.

“I hope they both move on. At their best, they are each incredible,” the tech giant Musk, tweeted Saturday in response to podcaster and MIT research scientist Lex Fridman who tweeted the day before:

I hope they both move on. At their best, they are each incredible.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 28, 2022

“My takeaways from Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial: 1. Fame is one hell of a drug (for some). 2. Psychiatrists & lawyers come in drastically varying levels of skill. 3. Lying to millions of people is something humans are capable of. 4. Love can be messy. 5. Mega pint of wine.”

Musk and Heard became romantically involved after she and Depp separated in 2016. They broke up in 2017, but then became involved again.

The extent of their relationship is largely unknown, although some witnesses suggested under oath they believed Musk was the donor who paid as much as $500,000 of Heard’s delinquent pledges to the American Civil Liberties Organization (ACLU).

Heard had initially pledged $3.5 million to the civil liberties organization and the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA), but her attorneys asserted the Depp lawsuit forced her to redirect her funds to pay for as much as $6 million in legal fees.

The six-week real life courtroom drama came to a final conclusion on 2:57 p.m. Friday when Fairfax County, Virginia Judge Penney Azcarate, a George Mason law graduate and Marine Corps. veteran, instructed the jury to begin deliberations.

Although deliberations began, the jury went home for the Memorial Day weekend without reaching a verdict after two hours. They are expected to reconvene Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. and will most likely reach a verdict sometime next week.

The trial was a stunning turnaround in the midst of the #MeToo movement in which Depp, 58, filed suit against Heard for a whopping $50 million after she penned a 2018 Washington Post column, in which she said she endured “our culture’s wrath” for speaking out against “sexual violence” as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.”

The article, which was later revealed to be largely edited by lawyers representing the ACLU—an organization which brought Heard on as an ambassador for women's rights—did not mention Depp by name.

Still, Depp’s legal team argued a reasonable person could easily tell she was targeting Depp with her accusations because of the timing she described in her article and that of her relationship with the former 21 Jump Street star.

Depp said the opinion piece ultimately cost him his Hollywood career and sank his chances of being recast as the world’s most lovable pirate, Jack Sparrow in the ongoing Pirates of the Caribbean series, which he is so famously known for.

Heard filed a $100 million countersuit asserting that claims made by Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, she had lied destroyed her blossoming career and caused her emotional distress. 

A jury could return different verdicts with a finding for Depp, Heard or neither—and award high damages or conversely, what are known as nominal damages— as low as one dollar to give one party a symbolic victory.