Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertisers Over Alleged ‘Mass Advertiser Boycott’ After Twitter Takeover

WICHITA FALLS, Texas — Elon Musk’s social media platform X is suing a group of advertisers, claiming a “massive advertiser boycott” has deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.

The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a Texas federal court against the World Federation of Advertisers and its member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted.

An advertising group initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media has been accused of helping coordinate the ad blackout after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and revamped its staff and policies.

Musk posted about the lawsuit on X on Tuesday, saying “it’s a war now” after two years of being nice and “receiving nothing but empty words.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a video announcement that the lawsuit is based in part on evidence uncovered by the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which she said showed that “a group of companies orchestrated a systematic, illegal boycott” against X.

The Republican-led committee held a hearing last month to examine whether current rules “are sufficient to deter anticompetitive collusion in online advertising.”