Joe McConnell
Elon Musk’s X/Twitter has filed a lawsuit against a group of major companies, accusing them of illegally conspiring to boycott the site.
It accuses food giants Unilever and Mars, private healthcare company CVS Health and renewable energy company Orsted, along with a trade association called the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), of depriving it of “billions of dollars” in advertising revenue.
The lawsuit concerns the period in 2022, shortly after Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, when advertising revenues plummeted.
Some companies were wary of advertising on the platform, fearing that the new owner was not serious enough about removing harmful content online.
X said CEO Linda Yaccarino “People are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is restricted. No small group of people should monopolize what is monetized.”
Mr Musk tweeted: “We tried to be nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now it’s war.”
The WFA and the accused companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
X’s advertising revenue fell by more than half in the year after Musk bought the company, as advertisers began to shun the platform.
In his lawsuit, X argues that the defendant companies wrongfully withheld fees because they complied with security standards set by a WFA initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).
Garm’s stated goal is to “help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and their monetization through advertising.”
In doing so, X argues that the companies acted against their own economic interests, in a conspiracy against the platform that violated U.S. antitrust or competition law.
Bill Baer, who served as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s antitrust division under Barack Obama, said the lawsuit was unlikely to succeed.
“As a general rule, a politically motivated boycott is not an antitrust violation. It is speech protected by our First Amendment,” he said.
Professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth of Vanderbilt University said the boycott was “really about making a statement about X’s policies and their brands.”
“This is protected by the First Amendment,” he said.
Even if the lawsuit succeeds, the social media site would not be able to force companies to buy advertising space on the platform.
X seeks unspecified damages and a court order against any continued attempts to conspire to withhold advertising expenses.
In its lawsuit, the company said it applied brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors and “met or exceeded” those specified by Garm.
He also said X had become a “less effective competitor” in selling digital advertising.
Video-sharing company Rumble, favored by right-wing influencers, made similar claims Tuesday in a separate lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers.
