Elon Musk’s social media platform X on Tuesday sued a global advertising alliance and several major companies including Unilever, Mars and CVS Health, accusing them of illegally conspiring to bypass the social network and intentionally cause it to lose revenue. The company formerly known as Twitter accused the defendants of a “massive advertiser boycott.”
X filed the lawsuit in federal court in Texas on Tuesday against the World Federation of Advertisers and the companies individually.
“We tried peace for 2 years, now it’s war,” Musk tweeted Tuesday.
The suit claims the advertisers, acting through a World Federation of Advertisers initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, collectively and maliciously withheld “billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from X. The company said they acted against their own economic interests in a conspiracy against the platform that violated U.S. antitrust law.
In a statement Tuesday about the lawsuit, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said: “People feel hurt when the marketplace of ideas is restricted. No small group of people should be able to monopolize what is being monetized.”
“The consequence – perhaps the intent – of this boycott was to try to deprive X users, whether sports fans, gamers, journalists, activists, parents, or political and corporate leaders, of the Global Town Square,” he wrote.
The World Advertising Federation, Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Advertising revenue on X fell for months after Musk bought the company in 2022. Brands had been wary of the rapid changes initiated under Musk’s ownership. Watchdog groups have cataloged a sharp rise in anti-Semitic content on X, including ads running alongside posts expressing pro-Nazi sentiments, after Musk dismantled the social network’s content moderation teams. A lawsuit filed by X against one of those organizations, Media Matters, is scheduled to go to trial in April 2025.
The advertising group launched the responsible media initiative in 2019 to “help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization through advertising.”
X claimed in its suit that it had applied brand safety standards comparable to those of its competitors and that they “meet or exceed” measures specified by the Global Alliance for Responsible Media. The company is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction against any continued attempts to conspire to withhold advertising dollars.
The suit said X had become a “less effective competitor” in the sale of digital advertising.