Billionaire against big corporations
Musk’s X sues renegade advertisers
X claims that renegade advertisers are violating competition law with a coordinated boycott. (Archive image) Photo
© Patrick Pleul/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa
Can you sue advertisers because they no longer want to place ads? Elon Musk is trying it – and accuses them of unfair competition.
In the lawsuit, X speaks of a coordinated boycott and a violation of competition law. Dozens of members of an international organization of advertisers colluded to withhold “billions of dollars” from X. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which was also sued, initially did not respond to the allegations.
The lawsuit escalates a conflict that began with Musk’s takeover of Twitter in October 2022. The tech billionaire describes himself as an advocate of unrestricted freedom of speech. Musk, who himself holds political positions on the American right, relaxed the implementation of Twitter’s rules against the spread of hate speech and misinformation.
Advertisers fear for their reputation
One consequence of Musk’s takeover was an exodus of large and small advertisers. He said several times that advertising revenue had roughly halved.
The companies are worried about their reputation: hate speech researchers demonstrated how advertisements from well-known brands can appear next to anti-Semitic posts. X explained the examples as manipulated and not commonplace.
With their initiative, the advertisers want to prevent their ads from appearing next to problematic content. Therefore, they only want to advertise on online platforms that adhere to the guidelines. X counters the association by saying that it wanted to force the service to implement the guidelines with a boycott.
They tried to do it peacefully for two years, but now there is war, Musk wrote in X about the lawsuit. Months ago, he had already attacked renegade advertisers with obscene words – and at the time, he had primarily targeted Disney.