Elon Musk’s X filed an antitrust lawsuit against an industry group representing numerous global brands, including the social network’s own advertisers, accusing it of conspiring to deprive X of billions of dollars.
“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk wrote on his social media platform.
The antitrust suit, filed in Texas federal court, accuses the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) of colluding to convince brands to limit or remove their advertising from X, which has struggled with declining revenues since Musk bought the company in 2022.
The legal action also names GARM members including CVS Health, Mars, Orsted, and Unilever. The Independent has contacted GARM and these firms for comment.
“These actions were all against the unilateral self-interest of the advertisers; they made economic sense only in furtherance of a conspiracy performed in the confidence that competing advertisers were doing the same,” the lawsuit reads.
In a post on X, CEO Lina Yaccarino accused the ad group of trying to cut off access to the “Global Town Square” that exists on the site, which cost X “billions of dollars.”
“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,” she wrote.
The lawsuit is a major gamble for X, which reported declining revenues in the last two quarters of this year.
GARM represents brands that spend more than 90 percent of global ad dollars, according to The New York Times, and the majority of X’s revenues come from advertising.
The industry coalition has been under scrutiny in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where a report last month from the Judiciary Committee accused GARM of cutting out conservative news sites and pressuring Spotify over Joe Rogan’s scientifically unfounded claims about Covid.
GARM, the report concluded, “likely violated federal antitrust laws” and could be shown to be “demonetizing certain viewpoints to limit consumer choice.”
X, under Musk, hasn’t been afraid to go into legal combat.
Last year, it sued Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media watchdog group, for defamation over an article claiming X allowed top brands to show their content near posts with antisemitic and neo-Nazi ideas.