A group of advertisers is sued by Elon Musk's X for a boycott

Elon Musk's social platform, X, has filed a lawsuit against a group of advertisers who led a boycott against the company, alleging that they conspired to "withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue."

The lawsuit targets the World Federation of Advertisers and its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which spearheaded the boycott following Musk's acquisition of Twitter, now rebranded as X, in 2022.

Filed in Texas federal court on Tuesday, the lawsuit claims that the boycott is ongoing, despite X implementing brand safety standards that are on par with, or even exceed, those of its competitors and GARM's guidelines.

X accuses the coalition, including major advertisers like Unilever, Mars, and CVS, of violating antitrust laws by bypassing fair competition through their collective boycott.

The platform contends that GARM's brand safety standards should succeed or fail in the marketplace based on their own merits, rather than being imposed through the collective market power of advertisers who are acting in their own economic interests at the expense of social media platforms and their users.

Since Musk took over X, the platform has faced difficulties retaining advertisers due to concerns over his decisions to relax content moderation policies and reinstate previously banned users, including former President Trump.

The situation escalated in November when major advertisers paused their spending after reports indicated that X had placed ads for mainstream brands alongside pro-Nazi and white nationalist content.

Musk reacted by harshly criticizing advertisers, telling them to "go f‑‑‑ yourself," though he later clarified that this was not directed at advertisers as a whole.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Musk stated, "We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now, it is war," and encouraged other companies facing similar boycotts to consider legal action.

Rumble, a conservative-leaning video-sharing platform similar to YouTube, announced on Tuesday that it has joined the lawsuit.

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