Slider of Cards Against Humanity Texas property before and after Elon Musk 2

Sherwood News

Before and after: Aerial photos show what being Elon Musk's neighbor can do to your land

Cards Against Humanity, which owns land in Texas, is suing the space billionaire to “un-fuck” its property and reputation, to the tune of $15 million.

Rani Molla

9/26/24 11:45AM

Whoever had “Cards Against Humanity sues Elon Musk’s SpaceX” on their 2024 bingo card, you win. This month the party game company filed a lawsuit seeking $15 million in damages from SpaceX for trespassing and dumping on its land as well as interfering in its business relationships.

In case you’re wondering how this strange clash between a card game and a cartoon billionaire came to be: Cards Against Humanity (CAH) originally purchased a property along the Texas-Mexico border in August 2017 in an attempt to thwart then-president Donald Trump’s border wall. It raised $2.25 million from supporters ($15 each from 150,000 people) to pay for the land as well as to secure a law firm that specializes in eminent domain to “make it as time-consuming and expensive as possible for Trump to build his wall.”

Since the purchase, CAH has gotten new neighbors — and problems with a new billionaire. Musk’s SpaceX, which has a launch facility 3 miles away, has since purchased the plots of land on either side of CAH. (A spokesperson for CAH said they didn’t know when those transactions took place and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

Here’s Google Earth imagery of what the land looked like in March 2022, a few years after CAH (using an LLC called Hole Holding) purchased it, versus April of this year after SpaceX began developing the plots. It appears SpaceX has altered both its and CAH's property.

As CAH phrased it on its website for the lawsuit, Elon Musk “figured he could just dump his shit all over our gorgeous plot of land without asking.” CAH said that after confronting SpaceX, the company in October of last year made a lowball offer for less than half the land’s value and gave them a 12-hour ultimatum in which to accept.

‘We said, “Go fuck yourself, Elon Musk. We’ll see you in court,”’ CAH wrote.

The 0.39 acres of property CAH owns was valued at around $2,150 when it was purchased and now is appraised at about $35,000, according to the county.

Here are some before and after photos of the land, provided by CAH in the lawsuit:

Before

Cards Against Humanity land before Elon Musk 3 — Cards Against Humanity

After

Cards Against Humanity land after Elon Musk 3 — Cards Against Humanity

“[N]one of the materials, none of the workers depicted in these pictures are owned by or associated with CAH in any way,” CAH said in its lawsuit. “SpaceX has never asked for permission to use the Property, much less for the egregious appropriation of the Property for its own profit-making purposes.”

CAH said SpaceX cleared the property of vegetation, spread gravel, ran generators, and trampled over the property with construction vehicles. CAH says it strove to keep the “pristine vacant property untouched by development nor impacted in any way to affect its original natural condition” mostly as they found it, simply mowing it and marking the property with a fence and a “No Trespassing” sign.

A CAH spokesperson said that the equipment and materials were still on the property as of the lawsuit’s filing.

Reuters has an excellent piece about how SpaceX has bought up properties and politicians in the area, sending property values up but the quality of life down. Musk is also facing blowback for environmental destruction at some of his other companies, including xAI in Tennessee and the Boring Company closer to Austin Texas.

In the lawsuit, the board game’s owners write that “CAH’s relationship with its supporters is its most precious asset both in the form of its current relationship and the prospective relationship in the future,” it says. “SpaceX’s acts have caused damage to both relationships in a variety of ways, but, in particular, by creating the impression that there is some association between CAH and SpaceX.”

CAH says it hopes to pay out the $15 million it is seeking in the suit via $100 payments to each of the 150,000 who originally donated money for the land. The site also says it will accept Twitter.com as compensation, a dig at how much less the company now called X is worth since Musk purchased it in 2022 for $44 billion.

Jon Keegan contributed reporting.

Claire Yubin Oh10/1/25

OK, so when was the longest shutdown in US history?

The US government officially shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday after senators failed to agree on a last-minute funding bill. Though initially shrugging off the threat of a shutdown during yesterday’s session, stocks were mildly in the red on Wednesday as investors reacted to what is now the 11th shutdown in the government’s history.

Until this latest shutdown, there had been 20 government funding gaps experienced since 1976 — though not all ended in a full shutdown, with full closure averted in half of those cases.

Indeed, prior to the 1980s, funding gaps didn’t typically have major effects on government operations, with agencies continuing to operate on the basis that the funding would come eventually. However, a more stringent interpretation of the rules led to a stricter appropriations process from the early 1980s onward, with many subsequent funding gaps resulting in a shutdown of affected agencies (unless the gaps were quickly fixed or occurred over a weekend).

Obviously, the duration of the latest shutdown is still unclear, but it will continue until Congress passes a funding bill — most likely via a “continuing resolution,” which has ended every shutdown since 1990. Data analyzed by USAFacts suggest that it might not be a one- or two-day affair, as funding gaps have lengthened in recent years.

Government shutdown patterns — Sherwood News

Indeed, the last shutdown, which began in December 2018, ended up becoming the longest in history, at a whopping 34 days. By the time the government reopened in January 2019, about $3 billion (in 2019 dollars) had been wiped from the GDP in Q4, per data from the Congressional Budget Office, with approximately $18 billion in “federal discretionary spending” delayed over the roughly five-week stretch.

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GM climbs following upgrade, report that Trump administration seeks stake in its lithium mine partner

Shares of General Motors rose more than 2% in premarket trading Wednesday following an upgrade of the stock by UBS from “neutral” to “buy.” The firm also hiked its price target for GM by 45% to $81.

Also likely elevating GM was a Reuters report that the Trump administration is exploring taking a 10% stake in Lithium Americas, the automaker’s partner in a yet to open Thacker Pass lithium mine. Shares of Lithium Americas surged 68% in the premarket.

GM, which invested $625 million into the lithium mine last year, holds a 38% stake in the joint venture. The mine is expected to become the Western Hemisphere’s primary lithium source in 2028, when it’s slated to open, producing enough of the metal to make 800,000 electric vehicle batteries.

Prior to its plans for Lithium Americas, the Trump administration last month said it would take a 10% stake in Intel. In July, it announced a 15% stake in rare earths miner MP Materials.

Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension highlights Nexstar and Sinclair’s vast control over US airwaves

Nexstar and Sinclair control large swaths of US television stations. Nexstar’s planned merger could make their influence even greater.

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Senator Mark Kelly wants AI companies to pay into a fund to offset AI’s negative impacts

The proposal would use money from top frontier AI companies to create an “AI Horizon Fund” to help retrain workers and pay for infrastructure upgrades in a “public / private partnership.”

Max Knoblauch9/16/25

Delta dips as the Trump administration orders the end of its joint venture with Aeromexico

Shares of Delta Air Lines ticked down on Tuesday morning following the Trump administration’s order that the airline dissolve its approximately 9-year-old joint venture with Aeromexcio by January 1, 2026.

Delta said it was disappointed in the decision, adding that the termination will “cause significant harm to U.S. jobs, communities and consumers traveling between the U.S. and Mexico.” CEO Ed Bastian previously said that the administration’s regulatory stance could be a “breath of fresh air” for the aviation industry.

The Biden administration tentatively decided last year to not renew the antitrust immunity agreement covering the joint venture. At the time, Delta said “$800 million in annual consumer benefits would evaporate” if the partnership were terminated.

Collaboration isn’t over between the two airlines: the Department of Transportation said Delta can maintain its 20% stake in the Mexican airline and the partnership can continue through “arms-length activities such as codesharing, marketing, and frequent flyer cooperation.”