Cards Against Humanity v SpaceX lawsuit settles mildly, and r/space is torn. Is the illegal use of private property okay if it furthers mankind’s effort to explore space? Or is this another case of billionaires getting away with anything they want with no repercussions?

Context

In 2017, Cards Against Humanity (CAH) bought a parcel of land in Texas near the U.S.–Mexico border via a crowdfunding campaign as a political stunt to oppose the proposed border wall.

In September 2024, CAH filed a lawsuit against SpaceX for $15 million in damages, alleging that SpaceX trespassed on CAH's land, used it without permission for parking equipment, dumping gravel/materials, removing vegetation, changed the character of the land, and generally caused damage to the property.

Here are before and after pictures CAH posted to their website regarding the damage their property endured as a result.

A few days ago, CAH announced that they had reached a settlement with SpaceX, just before a jury trial was to begin in November. CAH says that SpaceX admitted to trespassing on their property. As part of the outcome, SpaceX removed its equipment from CAH's land and CAH says it's now working with a local landscaping company to restore the land to its natural state.

The Drama

A thread about the settlement is created on r/space and several users take SpaceX's side.

Highlights:

This is a nonsense statement. SpaceX left the property as soon as the news broke a year ago. They never built anything on the property they were just storing some construction equipment on it.

Even in your best case scenario, they very much were not allowed to do that. Regardless, it's not the best case because they basically tore that plot of land up and left it as bare dirt.

Yeah they did. It's also not worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The fuck are you getting "hundreds of millions of dollars" from? The original lawsuit was $15 million to cover the costs of habitat restoration on the property, which maybe is a bit more than needed, but really not by that much and is frankly a fairly reasonable lawsuit goal considering the actual facts of the case…

their "storing equipment" caused significant damage to the property

So… remove the junk, replant grass?

Props to CAH. That company is awesome. They decided to cut out the middle man (game distributors) who were taking a cut from mom and pop game shops. So, they created their own distribution company called Black Box and onboarded some great indie games like Unstable Unicorns. Therefore, indie game shops got better discounts, and in turn, better margins.

Why props? They're a hateful company that hates space exploration.

Because they own a piece of land near/along the border? Yea, no, move along

No because they're the equivalent of a patent troll. They could have asked SpaceX to remove the property, but no they jumped straight to a lawsuit and made a big press release about suing them for hundreds of millions of dollars to get a big media splash. This is all advertising for their card game and you're falling for it.

I think I own some of that land! Bought with a game.

Legally you don't actually own any of the land.

I bet you are fun at parties

I don't go to parties that idiots attend.

Every party you attend has at least 1 idiot.

SpaceX has been building housing there. They own both lots adjacent to the CAH lot and several others nearby. This literally is nothing about SpaceX. It's just some housing construction. There was nothing related to space on those properties. It probably wasn't even owned by SpaceX. It was probably some contractor SpaceX hired that accidentally cleared the property and was using it for equipment storage when building the nearby lots.

Because thats what you want in a private space company, a lack of clear information and an inability to read a map.

We just talked about how it wasn't a space company directly doing this, most likely. SpaceX is still in the end responsible as they hired them (and SpaceX took responsibility), but housing contractors are not full of especially bright people, especially when hired to build a row of housing they'll assume that the entire block is being built on so will clear vegetation from the entire block.

We didn't talk about anything, you made the assumption. And yes, reading a map with surveyed points, coordinates, and gridlines for construction does in fact tell you where a property is. There are also geotech reports required before any earthmovers come in. And the fact that nothing was built on the land, but just used as storage implies they knew it wasn't their land to use.

No it implies that they knew that there was nothing planned to be built there, i.e. a useful storage spot for their equipment and supplies.

You didn't read the article. SpaceX didn't just store stuff on it. The contractors tranformed the lot. Spacex didn't ask for nor did they receive permission to put their stuff on it. The way you're talking is it's okay for your neighbor to put level out your backyard and store their wood chipper on it while they remove trees in your backyard just because they know you're not planning on building on it. Whatever the reason why CAH has this land is irrelevant. Spite house or not, they own it. I say this as a huge space nerd and some of the stuff Space X is doing has tranformed the future of space technology forever. But, I also know business and if SpaceX wanted this lot, they likely would need to rent it and it goes into contract negotiations and terms. Like any other business transaction. And per the linked article, SpaceX admitted they were wrong.

They aren't negligent, they just assumed they got everything cause it's Texas and the Texas govt wasn't going to stop them

That would be an incorrect characterization. They didn't built anything on the lot in question.

*Loud incorrect buzzer* if you look at the before and after pictures, you can clearly see the structures they built on the land. you're talking out of your rear end. Edit: *Loud incorrect buzzer* try again. The area photographed is the land, including the area the structures are built on, that's what CAH claimed in their lawsuit anyway, the one SpaceX just conceded.

Those structures are on the neighboring plots.

Proof? Because CAH says otherwise…

Where does CAH claim SpaceX built houses on their property? The lawsuit was about trespassing, storing construction supplies, and removing vegetation.

CAH really living up to their name. If they cared about humanity they'd donate the land to SpaceX.

That's a rich username to be claiming that

Thinking that “communism is a bad thing” doesn’t imply thinking that people shouldn’t donate things to others.

Pretty appropriate name it seems, they really are against humanity

Even if you believe SpaceX is a net positive for humanity, they shouldn't be allowed to dump construction equipment and materials on someone else's property without permission.

I think everyone is in agreement here on that. However at the same time frivilous lawsuit and smearing a company's name for a small accident likely caused by a company that SpaceX hired for building employee housing is a bit much. They didn't need to do a lawsuit. They could just request that SpaceX remove the construction equipment and they would have done so. All they did is give a bunch of money to some lawyers for no effect except for some press release.

You are taking a shitposting card party game company way too seriously…breath a little jesus.

Expecting the corps to clean up after themselves is against humanity?

We all know the only reason they did this is because they wanted to throw mud on Elon Musk. They even call SpaceX "space junk" in their statement. That's "against humanity".

Well that's certainly a take. Not a very smart or good one, but what can ya do?

Garbage people have to show up in every thread I guess. People don't like you, fyi.

The only "garbage people" here are those supporting CAH in this nonsense lawsuit that everyone knew would go nowhere. People like you are the garbage people. Edit: CAH didn't succeed though. They dressed up a loss (getting zero money and even apparently not getting even any assurances that SpaceX will restore the property) as if it was a won. Classic Trumpism behavior.

Odd thing to say in response to an article about how CaH succeeded. Reading comprehension is tough, huh buddy?

"Cards against humanity" really fitting name as someone else pointed out, God forbid we try to develop new tech. China doesn't have to worry about saboteurs and enemies from within like we do in the West….

Let me know where you live, I’m working on some tech.

ok so i can dump my trash in your yard, that you paid money for and you own? i live right next to you, so it shouldn't be a big deal right? i'm your new neighbour!

A normal country would nationalise the land (happened countless times in US history in order to develop and is entirely legal) and lease it to the company, in this case SpaceX. Instead this nonsense had to happen.

"Nationalize" the land by just stealing it, then privatizing it to a company? Have you considered that the issue was privatization to begin with??

Yes. It's something that was commonly done historically in many countries, including the US.

Yeah, that’s insanely corrupt.

Just ask your AI of choice for a list of instances of countries nationalizing land to give it to a corporation. There are many. It's got nothing to do with corruption.

SpaceX is a super polluter. Just because it gives you new shiny toys does not give them the right to do whatever the fuck they want for expediencies sake.

Lol no they are not. You have no clue what you're talking about. SpaceX constantly goes out of their way to help the environment including cleaning up the nearby beaches from tourists trash and doing sea turtle rescue in the nearby area.

Good talking point. Ever had an original thought?

"Card game for edgy manchildren impedes advancement of space program" is basically the headline of our times.

Card game for edgy manchildren impedes in the smallest way possible, the nerdy wankgasm project of the richest edgy manchild.

This type of attitude is why the UK has been essentially irrelevant on the global stage since WW2.

Pretty sure it was because their empire had collapsed and a superpower hopped in to take everything that wasn’t nailed down. Pretty sure it had nothing to do with the space program or the ongoing privatization of what should be national works in the name of the profit of a small number of nepobabied.

Are you seriously calling space enterprises "nerdy wankgasm" in r/space? What happened to people wanting us to go to space and build space economies? You people hate Elon Musk so much that you'd oppose him curing cancer, I swear. Deeply troubled people.

Did you think r/space would blindly simp for Musk because he bought a company that he’s running into the ground?

Spoken like a true ignorant who barged into a subreddit that he knows nothing about. ROFL. Imagine thinking Musk bought SpaceX. Jeez. You're not a fan of space or a regular user of this subreddit, you're a tourist.

You know people died because of what DOGE did to USAID, right? Hating Musk is a public duty.

So it's America's responsibility to keep people alive around the world? I thought you guys wanted us to stop interfering with other countries?

Improving the lives of sick and starving children is everyone's responsibility. Actively ripping food and medicine from their hands is cartoonishly evil.

What did America gain by letting people die whose lives could be saved for a few pennies? How does it make America better? Who stands to gain anything from it?

"Bah. Brown people. Who cares? We gotta pay for tax cuts and grift." – MAGA and Republican Jesus

You're proving my point here. You would literally be angry if he cured cancer.

But he didn't cure cancer. He screwed over millions of starving children… twice. Once when he backed out of his promise to help end world hunger, and again during his DOGE stint. I'm sure we'll all happily eat crow if Musk ever has a genuine come to Jesus moment, but I'm not counting on it.

"But he didn't cure cancer" They say that struggling to comprehend analogies is associated with really low iq.

And what do they say about people who posit boneheaded and unrealistic hypotheticals?

Way to prove my point. Bro can't follow what the analogy means because that requires critical thinking skills he lacks.

Eh, I don't mind being a little dumber than everyone else.

Everyone else minds though.