Johnny Depp trial: ACLU believes Elon Musk paid $500k of Amber Heard's pledged donation

Elon Musk is said to have donated half a million dollars to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Aquaman actor Amber Heard's name. On Wednesday, amid Johnny Depp's ongoing defamation trial against Amber Heard in Fairfax, Virginia, Terence Dougherty, the Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of the ACLU testified about the donations that the organisation has received from and on behalf of the former couple. His virtual testimony was recorded in the month of December 2021. 

Elon Musk paid half a million dollars to ACLU

Dougherty's testimony came in response to Heard's 2016 statement where she said that she was splitting her $7 million Depp divorce settlement money equally between the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and the ACLU. However, Depp later had stated that he had sent 'the first of multiple installments' to the actor's chosen charities. Dougherty said that of the $1.3 million donated, Heard had given $350,000 directly, while $100,000 was contributed by Johnny Depp and $350,000 came from an investment fund. 

It was also the same year that Depp and Heard's divorce was finalised and the latter started dating Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Recently, Dougherty testified that the ACLU has received a $500,000 donation from a donor-advised fund located at Vanguard, which he 'believed was a fund set up by Elon Musk'. He said that based on emails with Musk, the ACLU understood that Heard's $3.5 million donations would be given over 10 years. Heard's last donation of $350,000 was in the month of December 2018 and she has not paid more money since then. The ACLU is still short of $2.2 million of the total promised amount. 

Additionally, during the trial, text messages were also shown where Heard had acknowledged to her former agent that she never really loved Musk. Several reports came out in August 2017 suggesting the pair had broken up.

Furthermore, in December 2018, Heard's op-ed in The Washington Post was published announcing that she had taken on a role as an ACLU ambassador on women's rights. Dougherty also testified that ACLU lawyers- David Cole, the national legal director who has argued before the Supreme Court numerous times, had helped draft the op-ed. 

Image: AP