Johnny Depp v Amber Heard: Elon Musk paid nearly half of Heard's donation to charity

Amber Heard and Elon Musk briefly dated between 2016 and 2017. Photo / Instagram @amberheard

New facts have emerged after it was revealed Amber Heard has failed to pay less than half of what she promised to donate to charity.

A witness called to the stand in Johnny Depp's ongoing defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife has claimed Tesla CEO and Heard's ex-boyfriend Elon Musk paid nearly half of her donation to charity.

The Daily Mail reported that Heard promised to donate her US$7m ($10.7m) divorce settlement to charity. The star committed to splitting the funds between the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to support its work in "fighting violence against women".

However, Terrance Dougherty, from ACLU, revealed this never happened. Instead, Heard donated US$1.2m to ACLU leaving more than US$2m owning.

Dougherty provided a breakdown of the donations so far stating US$350,000 was paid directly by Heard; US$100,000 was paid via Depp and US$350,000 was also paid via a donor-advised fund.

Dougherty then said a further US$500,000 was paid by a donor-advised fund and said he "believed it was a fund set up by Elon Musk".

Elon Musk helped Amber Heard set up her payments to ACLU new court evidence has revealed. Photo / Getty Images

Depp's lawyers then asked Dougherty if there were messages with Musk to confirm this, Dougherty said there were and revealed there was a document and emails produced to the lawyers regarding the money.

Evidence revealed Musk played a key role in organising Heard's donations to ACLU as he had given to the charity previously. In an email to the executive director of ACLU, Anthony Romero, Musk said, "I described your [Heard's] plan to donate $3.5million to the ACLU over the next 10 years as you very much believe in what they're doing".

The court then heard the actress's last donation to the charity was in December 2018 for a total of US$350,000 from her anonymous account with Fidelity. ACLU did not check to guarantee it was her money.

After being asked if the charity had made any effort to receive another donation from Heard, Dougherty said: "We reached out to Miss Heard starting in 2019 for the next instalment of her giving and we learned she was having financial difficulties."

Amber Heard seen talking to her lawyer during the bitter court case. Photo / AP

Musk, who dated the actress between 2016 and 2017, was on the original witness list and was expected to take the stand next week – as was James Franco. However, The NY Post has confirmed neither will testify in the trial.