Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and tech billionaire Elon Musk were named in a complaint filed in France over allegations of “aggravated cyber harassment” against Olympic champion Imane Khelif.
Variety confirmed the news on Tuesday, and said that the lawsuit was filed against X (formerly Twitter) on Aug. 9, the same day Kehlif won a gold medal in the women’s welterweight division of the 2024 Olympics. Khelif’s attorney, Nabil Boudi, told the outlet that this “ensure[s] that the prosecution has all the latitude to be able to investigate against all people,” including those who used pseudonyms to write hate speech directed at Khelfi. If the prosecutor’s office charges anyone under the statute, it could call for two to five years in prison and tens of thousands of Euros in fines.
Boudi added that Donald Trump would be part of the probe, as the former president “tweeted, so whether or not he is named in our lawsuit, he will inevitably be looked into as part of the prosecution.”
The controversy surrounding the Algerian boxer began on Aug. 1, when her opponent, Italian boxer Angela Carini, withdrew from a match after just 46 seconds, saying, “I have never been hit so hard in my life.” This led to a wave of baseless criticism from people like Musk, Rowling, Trump, and Logan Paul — all of whom falsely suggested that Khelif is a trans woman and/or that she should be barred from women’s athletic events. (Paul later posted a statement admitting that “I might be guilty of spreading misinformation.”)
In fact, Khelif, 25, was assigned female at birth, has never identified as transgender, and the International Olympic Committee has repeatedly asserted her qualifications to compete in the women’s division.
The accusations made against Khelif stemmed from the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) decision to disqualify Khelif and boxer Li Yu-ting of Taiwan from 2023’s women’s world championships. At the time, IBA President Umar Kremlev claimed that Khelif was ineligible to compete as genetic testing had proven she “had XY chromosomes.” The tests conducted and their results were never made public, and Khelif challenged the claim.
Last year, the IBA was permanently banned from the Olympics after it was stripped of its role in organizing the Olympic games in 2019 amid corruption allegations and evidence the organization rigged matches in Rio.
Meanwhile, Musk and his social media platform, X, have become the biggest purveyors of misinformation online. Nearly two years since his $44 billion takeover, false and misleading information about wars, health, climate change, elections and more have flourished alongside violent rhetoric and hate speech on the digital forum.
Since 2018, Rowling has approved of or has made repeated transphobic comments online. Rolling Stone previously described the author as “one of the hardest-working transphobes online” and referred to her 2022 novel, The Ink Black Heart, in which a character is persecuted for transphobia. And in March, U.K. broadcaster India Willoughby filed a criminal complaint against Rowling citing transphobia and claimed she misgendered her, violating the country’s Equalities Act and Gender Recognition Act.
According to the Associated Press, Khelif had previously said that she didn’t “care about that” controversy surrounding her gender and was focused on fighting.
After her win in the Olympics quarterfinals against Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori, Khelif declared: “I want to tell the entire world that I am a female, and I will remain a female.”
