Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) successfully sued Gawker with the backing of investor Peter Thiel, who had a well-known grudge against them. That doesn't take away from the fact that Gawker grossly invaded people's privacy in order to turn a profit on harmful gossip.
They just want to make a buck and posture as if they have some moral quandry with the company or their leadership.
I never could understand how what he said wasn't considered defamation. If that's not defamation, what is?
Bottom line is that it's very hard to win defamation cases in the US. The Tesla engineer might have a shot because she was not well known, and Tesla accused her of very specific acts (moonlighting, unapproved travel) and they knew those accusations to be false. On the other hand, these were not exactly crimes, so who knows.
The legal system has a concept of "no harm no foul," (i.e. the concept of a "tort"), and if nobody believed Elon's obviously stupid tweet, there would be no tort to sue on.
Being funded by short sellers does not imply her case is false: they can be independent, albeit the same goal ("your enemy is my friend").
PS: Tesla fans or stock holders could be the reason why this story was initially flagged
Gregory Reyes $5,000 (shortseller) Donna Walker $1,212 (shortseller) NetflixAndLamp $1,000 (shortseller) DIP Harambe $500 (shortseller) Machine Planet $500 (shortseller) Paul Shust $250 (shortseller) Naked Shortseller $100 (shortseller) Oslo Skeptic $100 (shortseller) Bones ThreeZero $50 (shortseller)
Since someone downvoted me, above are known TESLAQ folks and some are confirmed shortsellers while others tweet incessantly anything negative on this company but I cannot confirm 100% that they have short positions in this stock right now.