Fox Sues LinkedIn Co-Founder Hoffman for Litigation Funding Info

Fox Corp. wants documents from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman regarding his funding of a defamation case against the media company.

Hoffman revealed last July that he funded voting technology company Smartmatic USA Corp.'s $2.7 billion defamation case against Fox over a conspiracy theory that the company rigged the 2020 US presidential election. Fox says it learned that Hoffman funded the plaintiffs with $25 million to support the lawsuit.

On Jan. 29, Fox filed a petition in California Superior Court to compel discovery against Hoffman. Fox says he and his aide Dmitri Mehlhorn objected to subpoenas in December. Fox is represented by Kirkland & Ellis.

Fox is requesting Hoffman produce documents and provide deposition testimony about the funding, his communications with Smartmatic, Smartmatic’s financial position, and the validity of the claims against Fox.

Fox filed the subpoenas after multiple press reports that Hoffman had entered into a funding agreement with Smartmatic. The company claims that the press reports “confirmed that even Hoffman believes Smartmatic’s pre-alleged-defamation value is significantly less than Smartmatic represents in its lawsuit. “

The company also subpoenaed Hoffman’s advisor Mehlhorn for his and Hoffman’s analysis of Smartmatic’s value. In a Washington Post article, Mehlhorn stated that “if not for the slander and smears,” Smartmatic “could be a $400 million company.”

“A $400 million enterprise value is a far cry from Smartmatic’s claimed damages of $2.7 billion, which included an alleged loss in enterprise value for Smartmatic’s election business of $2.4 billion,” counsel for Fox wrote in the petition.

In April of 2023 Fox agreed to pay Dominion, another voting machine company, $787.5 million over similar defamation claims.

Hoffman, who is also a cofounder of Inflection AI and a partner at Greylock Partners, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Smartmatic, represented by Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff, filed its lawsuit against Fox and two of President Trump’s former attorneys in Feburary 2021 in New York Supreme Court.

Last month, a New York appellate court ruled that Fox will have to face defamation claims for statements it aired on its network. Smartmatic sufficiently alleges in its $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox executives that the corporation may be directly liable for disinformation that was part of Fox News’s 2020 post-election coverage, the New York Supreme Court First Appellate Department wrote in an unsigned opinion. The allegations also “satisfy the applicable pleading requirements for alleging ‘actual malice,’” the court said.

The petition also states that Fox needs the discovery to support its anti-SLAPP counterclaim it asserted against Smartmatic in an April 2023 answer to Smartmatic’s amended complaint.

In March 2023, New York Justice David Cohen held that information related to any litigation funding agreements entered by Smartmatic is discoverable because the information “may lead to relevant evidence as to plaintiffs’ motivation, [and] the information may be material and necessary to defendants’ [anti-SLAPP] counterclaim.”

“Media outlets quoted Hoffman and Mehlhorn who touted the funding agreement as intended to aid Smartmatic in its lawsuit against Fox as part of Hoffman’s ‘battle to protect America from MAGA,’” counsel for Fox wrote.

“If this lawsuit is motivated not by the facts but by some political agenda against Fox News or its perceived political views, that is evidence Fox must obtain in connection with its counterclaim.”

The case is Fox Corporation v. Reid Hoffman, Cal. Super. Ct., 25CV457677, 1/29/25