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By Natalie Venegas
Weekend Reporter
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Elon Musk's social media platform, X, formerly Twitter, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against a group of advertisers that accuses them of orchestrating an advertiser boycott and costing the company billions in revenue.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and major corporations like Unilever, Mars, CVS Health, and Orsted. The suit alleges that the WFA's Global Alliance for Responsible Media coordinated a pause in advertising following Musk's acquisition of Twitter in late 2022, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Musk took over the social media platform in a highly scrutinized purchase in 2022, when he bought it for $44 billion. He has since rebranded the social-media platform as X and implemented some controversial changes. These changes included eliminating much of Twitter's staff, temporarily suspending some journalists from the platform and reinstating many of its previously banned users.
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Newsweek reached out to the World Federation of Advertisers and X via email on Tuesday for comment.
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While the lawsuit primarily focuses on the initial phase of Musk's ownership of Twitter, it follows a later clash with advertisers last year.
In November 2023, concerns about ads appearing next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech led to a wave of advertisers abandoning X. In addition, Musk's controversial endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory further fueled the issue, the AP reported.
According to the AP, Musk later criticized these advertisers, accusing them of "blackmail" and using profane language to dismiss them.
Meanwhile, Musk wrote about his new lawsuit in a series of posts on X.
"We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now, it is war," Musk said, sharing a video of Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.
In the video, Yaccarino attributes the lawsuit's origins to evidence presented by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. According to Yaccarino, this evidence suggests a "systematic illegal boycott" organized by a group of companies.
In another post on X, Musk urged other companies to file similar lawsuits against advertisers who have "boycotted."
"I strongly encourage any company who has been systematically boycotted by advertisers to file a lawsuit. There may also be criminal liability via the RICO Act," Musk said.
As a result of X's legal action, Rumble—an alternative video sharing platform favored by right-wing and Republican figures—announced it would be joining X in suing advertisers and ad agencies who "conspired to block ad revenue from going to certain platforms and content creators."
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