Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertisers Over Alleged ‘Massive Advertiser Boycott’

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.

The lawsuit claims an influential ad industry group organized “to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising from Twitter” because the group was concerned that the platform had deviated from brand safety standards after Musk’s acquisition in late 2022.

The group is the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, also known as GARM, a voluntary ad-industry initiative run by the World Federation of Advertisers (with members like Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted) that aims to help brands avoid having their advertisements appear alongside illegal or harmful content.

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

CNN reports that the lawsuit is the latest effort by X to revive its core ad business, which has tanked since Musk’s takeover. Many brands have pulled their spending over concerns that their ads might run alongside misinformation or hate speech, which Elon Musk himself has occasionally promoted. The suit also continues Musk’s habit of feuding with the advertisers whose money he relies on; last year, he told brands who had left the platform to “go f**k yourself.”