Elon Musk’s social media platform X is suing a group of advertisers. The company says that a large boycott by advertisers caused it to lose billions of dollars and broke antitrust laws.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in a Texas federal court against the World Federation of Advertisers and its member companies: Unilever, Mars, CVS Health, and Orsted.
The lawsuit claims that the advertising group’s initiative, known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, helped organize a halt in advertising after Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and made big changes to the staff and policies.
Musk Declares “War” on Advertisers as X Accuses Them of Illegal Boycott
On Tuesday, Musk shared about the lawsuit on X, saying that “now it is war” after two years of being patient and receiving “nothing but empty words.”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a video announcement that the lawsuit partly came from evidence found by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. She claimed this evidence showed that a “group of companies organized a systematic illegal boycott” against X.
Last month, the Republican-led committee held a hearing to examine whether current laws are enough to prevent unfair collusion in online advertising.
The lawsuit focuses on the early days of Musk’s takeover of Twitter, not on a more recent issue with advertisers that happened a year later.
In November 2023, about a year after Musk bought the company, many advertisers started leaving X because they were worried their ads might appear next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site. Musk also made things worse with his own posts supporting an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Musk later accused the departing advertisers of “blackmail” and told them to leave using profanity.
The World Federation of Advertisers, based in Belgium, along with representatives from CVS, Orsted, Mars, and Unilever, didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Conclusion
Elon Musk’s X is suing big advertisers, saying they led a boycott that cost the company billions. The lawsuit, backed by evidence from a U.S. House committee, claims the advertisers worked together to stop ads after Musk bought Twitter. The advertisers haven’t responded yet.
