Elon Musk's X sues coalition of advertisers over boycott

Elon Musk’s X sued a coalition of advertisers leading a boycott against the social media platform, accusing the group of conspiring to “collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue.” 

The suit takes aim at the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and its initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which led a boycott against the platform formerly known as Twitter after it was acquired by Musk in 2022. 

“The boycott and its effects continue to this day, despite X applying brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors and which meet or exceed those specified by GARM,” the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Texas federal court, reads. 

X accused the coalition and several specific advertisers, namely Unilever, Mars and CVS, of violating antitrust law and circumventing the competitive process with their boycott. 

“The brand safety standards set by GARM should succeed or fail in the marketplace on their own merits and not through the coercive exercise of market power by advertisers acting collectively to promote their own economic interests through commercial restraints at the expense of social media platforms and their users,” the platform argued. 

Since Musk’s takeover of the platform, X has struggled to retain advertisers, who were wary of the tech billionaire's early decisions to roll back content moderation policies and reinstate previously banned users, like former President Trump. 

Several major advertisers also paused their spending on the platform last November, after reports emerged that X was placing ads for mainstream brands next to pro-Nazi and white nationalist content. 

Musk responded by lashing out at advertisers, telling them to “go f‑‑‑ yourself.” He has since walked back the statement, arguing that it wasn’t aimed at advertisers “as a whole.” 

“We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now, it is war,” he said in a post on X on Tuesday, later adding, “I strongly encourage any company who has been systematically boycotted by advertisers to file a lawsuit.” 

Rumble, a YouTube-like video-sharing platform popular among conservatives, has joined the lawsuit, the company revealed in a press release Tuesday.