Elon Musk covered nearly half of ex-girlfriend Amber Heard‘s donation to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after the actress pledged to give away her multimillion dollar divorce settlement to charity following her split from Johnny Depp.
Jurors in Heard and Depp’s $100million defamation trial on Thursday heard the actress has so far only paid $1.3million of the $3.5million she promised the ACLU nearly six years ago, with Musk’s money making up a large chunk of it.
The billionaire Tesla founder, 50, gave $500,000 to the civil rights group on behalf of Heard after the two began dating after her divorce from Depp in 2016.
The Aquaman star, 36, announced she would donate the $7million she received in her settlement to two organizations when the couple’s legal separation was finalized in August 2016.
Heard promised to give half the money to the ACLU to support its work in ‘fighting violence against women’, and the other $3.5million to the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.
But Terence Dougherty, the ACLU Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, testified in the trial Thursday, telling the court the organizations’ promised donation has not been paid in full yet.
Dougherty said that so far only a total of $1.3million has either been paid by Heard or on her behalf.
Of that money, Heard contributed $350,000 directly, while $100,000 was paid by Depp and another $350,000 came from a fund at Fidelity, an investment company.
Another $500,000 payment came from an account at investment firm Vanguard, which Dougherty said he ‘believed it was a fund set up by Elon Musk.’
Asked by one of Depp’s lawyers if there were messages with Musk about it, Dougherty said there were.
He said there was a document and emails they had produced to the lawyers in the case regarding the money.
