WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s social media platform X is suing a group of advertisers, claiming they engaged in an “illegal boycott” of the Twitter successor.
“We tried peace for two years, now it is war,“ Musk posted on X.
The advertisers Musk is taking to court include the consumer goods giant Unilever, the packaged food company Mars, and drugstore chain owner CVS Health, among others.
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday in a US district court in Texas alleges a coordinated “massive advertiser boycott” that deprived the company of “billions of dollars” and violated US competition laws.
The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), a trade body which is also being sued, did not initially respond to the allegations.
The lawsuit alleges that companies boycotted X through a WFA initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). The initiative had raised concerns about safety issues on the platform.
The lawsuit escalates a fight that began with Musk’s takeover of Twitter in October 2022.
The tech billionaire, who describes himself as an advocate of unrestricted freedom of speech, relaxed the implementation of Twitter rules against the spread of hate speech and misinformation.
An exodus of large and small advertisers followed.
The companies are worried about their reputation, with hate speech researchers demonstrating how adverts from well-known brands can appear alongside anti-Semitic or racist posts.
X, however, has denied allegations that hate speech is proliferating on the platform.
With the GARM initiative, advertisers have aimed to prevent their ad buys from appearing next to problematic content by only doing business with the platforms that adhere to certain guidelines.
X counters that the trade body was illegally trying to force the service to implement the guidelines with a boycott.
“I strongly encourage any company who has been systematically boycotted by advertisers to file a lawsuit,“ Musk wrote on Tuesday.
