Elon Musk’s social media company had appealed against a federal gag order preventing it from disclosing government surveillance of X users.
The Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal by X, formerly known as Twitter, that challenged a law preventing the company from disclosing how often the federal government sought monitoring of social media users.
X had said the U.S. government’s ban on disclosing the exact number of receipts of national security-related requests for surveillance of users was unconstitutional.
The firm is owned by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who also heads SpaceX and Tesla.
The Supreme Court rejected the petition for certiorari, or review, in X Corp. v. Garland in an unsigned order on Jan. 8.
No justices dissented. The court didn’t explain its decision.
At least four of the nine justices must vote to grant the petition for the case to advance to the oral argument stage.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was the lead respondent in the appeal.
The decision came after an appeals court decision in August showed that special counsel Jack Smith had secured a search warrant in early 2023 for the Twitter account of former President Donald Trump as part of a federal criminal probe of the former president over alleged election interference.
X didn’t immediately hand over the materials sought in the warrant and asked a court to halt an order preventing the company from informing President Trump or anyone else of the existence of the warrant, according to a CNBC summary.
A federal district court fined X $350,000 for contempt for missing the handover deadline.
An appeals court turned away X’s request to void the contempt ruling and nondisclosure order. The company argued that the order infringed on its constitutional right to communicate with President Trump, its user.
The incident was not referenced in X’s petition.
The federal government carries out surveillance of Americans and foreign nationals by issuing “national security process,” or legal demands, to electronic communication service providers such as X, according to the petition.
