Elon Musk-owned X has secured a German court motion to remove a judge overseeing a legal battle between the social media giant and two activist groups over sharing election data, a court document seen by Reuters on Friday showed.

Earlier this month, a regional court in Berlin granted a motion by the civil activist groups to force X - formerly Twitter - to share real-time access to data on the February 23 German election until two days after the vote.

The two groups said they needed the data to let them track misinformation and disinformation ahead of the election.

X filed an appeal as well as a motion to remove a judge in the case whom it argued "had positively engaged" with social media content from the plaintiffs - Democracy Reporting International and the Society for Civil Rights.

The court and both groups confirmed the decision when contacted by Reuters. Motions against two other judges were dismissed. U.S. law firm White & Case, which represented X, declined to comment…

The legal battle is taking place against the backdrop of a stand-off between Germany's political establishment and Musk, who has blasted incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz as a "fool" and endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)…