Social media platform X sues advertisers over ‘boycott’

NEW YORK

Elon Musk's X has sued an advertising group and several large corporations, accusing them of causing billions of dollars of losses by "illegally" boycotting the social media platform.

"We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war," the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX said on X, which he acquired in late 2022.

The antitrust suit, filed in a federal court in Texas, targets the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted, a Danish energy company.

It accuses WFA, through an initiative known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), of conspiring with the companies and others to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue" from X, formerly Twitter.

A number of advertisers left Twitter following Musk's takeover amid concerns about the level of content moderation under the new ownership and Musk's own controversial musings on the site.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino, in a video posted on the platform, said X was the victim of a "systematic illegal boycott."

"They conspired to boycott X which threatens our ability to thrive in the future," Yaccarino said. "No small group of people should be able to monopolize what gets monetized."

X is seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages.

According to The New York Times, citing internal company documents, X earned $114 million in revenue in the United States in the second quarter of this year, down 25 percent from the first quarter and down 53 percent from the same period last year.