Elon Musk Backs Gina Caranos Disney Suit Over Mandalorian Exit – The New York Times

Elon Musk poked the Walt Disney Company anew on Tuesday by agreeing to fund a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by the Mandalorian actress Gina Carano.

Please let us know if you would like to join the lawsuit against Disney, Mr. Musk, seemingly trawling for other plaintiffs, wrote in a post on X, which he bought in 2022.

Disney dropped Ms. Carano, a former mixed-martial artist, from The Mandalorian in 2021 after she espoused baseless conspiracy theories and right-wing positions, some of which were seen as homophobic and antisemitic, in a series of social media posts. Her character was written out of the series. Lucasfilm, the Disney division that makes The Mandalorian, said in a statement at the time that Ms. Caranos social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.

United Talent Agency also dropped Ms. Carano.

Ms. Caranos suit, filed on Tuesday in federal court in California, seeks a court order forcing Disney and Lucasfilm to weave her Mandalorian character back into episodes and recast her for the part. (Employed as a guest actor, she was paid $25,000 for each episode in which she appeared.) She is also suing for punitive damages.

Mr. Musk has been throwing elbows at Disney and its chief executive, Robert A. Iger, since Disney and Xs other major advertisers, including Apple, paused spending on the platform in mid-November. The advertisers took action after Mr. Musks endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory. He seemed especially angry about Disneys decision to pull ads; other Hollywood companies, in particular, followed Disneys lead.

In internal documents at X, which were seen by The New York Times, sales employees have been notified that Disney has continued to pause advertising on the platform globally and indefinitely.

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Elon Musk Backs Gina Caranos Disney Suit Over Mandalorian Exit - The New York Times