Elon Musk sues advertisers and brands over X advertising boycott

Jacqui Parr
Musk with his hands clasped together. Elon Musk is suing advertisers and major brands over a "massive advertiser boycott", accusing them of conspiring to make X lose money. Marketing Beat asks what the situationw ill mean for advertisers and how they can react.
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Elon Musk’s X is suing advertisers and major brands over a “massive advertiser boycott”, accusing major companies such as Mars and Unilever of conspiring to make the social media platform lose money.

The company formerly known as Twitter filed the federal lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers as well as a number of companies it believed were working together unlawfully – against their own economic interests – in a violation of US antitrust law.

Tech billionaire Musk has accused the brands of deliberately and maliciously causing the social network to lose “billions of dollars in advertising revenue”.

Many of the brands who withheld or withdrew advertising revenue from X were acting through the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which was set up to help the industry address the monetisation of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms.

“To put it simply, people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is undermined and some viewpoints are not funded over others as part of an illegal boycott,” said X CEO Linda Yaccarino in an open letter to the industry.

“This behaviour is a stain on a great industry, and cannot be allowed to continue.”

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In a video post which followed shortly afterwards, she continued: “No small group of people should monopolise what gets monetised.

“The consequence – perhaps the intent – of this boycott was to seek to deprive X’s users, be they sports fans, gamers, journalists, activists, parents or political and corporate leaders, of the Global Town Square.”

Ad revenue at X has been suffering for some time, as advertisers continue to express concerns about a number of changes – such as the impact of the blue tick – which have been implemented since Musk bought the company in 2022.

In addition, a spike in harmful content has been waved through under Musk’s ‘free speech’ leadership model, with a lack of content moderation leading to ads running alongside questionable far-right and antisemitic content.

The lawsuit said the boycott led to X becoming a “less effective competitor” in digital advertising. The social media firm is seeking unspecified damages and a court order against any further collective action by the advertisers.

Musk has previously hit back at advertisers who chose not to place ads on X by telling them to “go fuck themselves”, insisting he wouldn’t be blackmailed.

Innovation and TechNewsSocial Media
Innovation and TechNewsSocial Media
Jacqui Parr

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Elon Musk sues advertisers and brands over X advertising boycott

Musk with his hands clasped together. Elon Musk is suing advertisers and major brands over a "massive advertiser boycott", accusing them of conspiring to make X lose money. Marketing Beat asks what the situationw ill mean for advertisers and how they can react.

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Elon Musk’s X is suing advertisers and major brands over a “massive advertiser boycott”, accusing major companies such as Mars and Unilever of conspiring to make the social media platform lose money.

The company formerly known as Twitter filed the federal lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers as well as a number of companies it believed were working together unlawfully – against their own economic interests – in a violation of US antitrust law.

Tech billionaire Musk has accused the brands of deliberately and maliciously causing the social network to lose “billions of dollars in advertising revenue”.

Many of the brands who withheld or withdrew advertising revenue from X were acting through the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which was set up to help the industry address the monetisation of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms.

“To put it simply, people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is undermined and some viewpoints are not funded over others as part of an illegal boycott,” said X CEO Linda Yaccarino in an open letter to the industry.

“This behaviour is a stain on a great industry, and cannot be allowed to continue.”

Subscribe to Marketing Beat for free

Sign up here to get the latest news sent straight to your inbox each morning

In a video post which followed shortly afterwards, she continued: “No small group of people should monopolise what gets monetised.

“The consequence – perhaps the intent – of this boycott was to seek to deprive X’s users, be they sports fans, gamers, journalists, activists, parents or political and corporate leaders, of the Global Town Square.”

Ad revenue at X has been suffering for some time, as advertisers continue to express concerns about a number of changes – such as the impact of the blue tick – which have been implemented since Musk bought the company in 2022.

In addition, a spike in harmful content has been waved through under Musk’s ‘free speech’ leadership model, with a lack of content moderation leading to ads running alongside questionable far-right and antisemitic content.

The lawsuit said the boycott led to X becoming a “less effective competitor” in digital advertising. The social media firm is seeking unspecified damages and a court order against any further collective action by the advertisers.

Musk has previously hit back at advertisers who chose not to place ads on X by telling them to “go fuck themselves”, insisting he wouldn’t be blackmailed.

Innovation and TechNewsSocial Media

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