'I will never obey': Lawyer targeted by Elon Musk hits back

Attorney Marc Elias, the founder of Democracy Docket, is hitting back at Elon Musk after the X owner targeted him in social media posts.

In response to a Musk post that accused him of "undermining civilization" and of suffering "generational trauma," Elias wrote Musk a letter explaining why he will never be intimidated by the richest man in the world.

In the letter, Elias takes on Musk's taunts head on by recounting the history of how his Jewish family was forced to flee from 19th Century Russia.

"By the time my family fled, life in the Pale had become all but impossible for Jews," he told Musk. "Tsar Nicholas II’s government spread anti-Jewish propaganda that encouraged Russians to attack and steal from Jews in their communities... That is the generational trauma I carry. The trauma of being treated as 'other' by countrymen you once thought were your friends. The trauma of being scapegoated by authoritarian leaders. The trauma of fleeing while millions of others were systematically murdered. The trauma of watching powerful men treat it all as a joke — or worse."

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He then drew on his family's history of defiance and survival to explain to Musk why he would be a relentless foe of President Donald Trump.

"But you need to know this about me. I am the great-grandson of a man who led his family out of the shtetl to a strange land in search of a better life," he wrote. "I will use every tool at my disposal to protect this country from Trump. I will litigate to defend voting rights until there are no cases left to bring. I will speak out against authoritarianism until my last breath."

He close his letter by writing, "I will never obey."

Read the full letter here.