Antitrust law professors aren't impressed by Elon Musk's lawsuit alleging a supposed X advertising boycott amounts to an antitrust violation. Based on the initial complaint filed by Musk's X Corp., it looks like "a very weak case," Vanderbilt Law School Associate Dean for Research Rebecca Haw Allensworth told Ars. "Given how difficult this will be to win, I would call it an unusual strategy," she said. The lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and several large corporations says that the alleged boycott is "a naked restraint of trade...

Musk's latest frivolous lawsuit from his foundering social media company has done what he wanted: killed the group seeking to keep their ads away from his offensive content. Musk's lawsuit probably won't make it far, but the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) has announced the pressure worked, and they are closing up shop. "GARM is a small, not-for-profit initiative, and recent allegations that unfortunately misconstrue its purpose and activities have caused a distraction and significantly drained its resources and finances," the group said in a statement Friday.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a nonprofit initiative founded by the World Federation of Advertisers, said Thursday it would halt its activities because it couldn’t afford to fight a lawsuit from X. The Elon Musk-owned social platform sued the group over a boycott that deprived the company of billions of dollars in ad revenue. In an email to members, WFA CEO Stephan Loerke said the WFA will remain fully operational, and had every intention of fighting X’s lawsuit in court, according to Business Insider and the New York Times,...

Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter, renamed it X, and started transmogrifying it into a scaled version of 4chan, he and the platform have had a strained relationship with the advertising industry. Advertisers notably dislike controversy, and Musk is really good at courting it. Last November, true to form, Musk offended a bunch of people and then told advertisers who were considering pulling their content from his site that they could “go fuck” themselves. He clarified that if companies or ad executives found him or his site offensive they should...

Elon Musk's X has launched legal action against a string of companies after they stopped advertising on the social network. The tech giant, formerly known as Twitter, alleges the firms unlawfully conspired to boycott the site and caused it to lose "billions of dollars" in revenue. The lawsuit was filed in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies British multinational Unilever, food giant Mars, CVS Health and Danish renewable energy company Orsted. Musk wrote on X: "We tried peace for two years, now it is war." It...

Elon Musk is taking his grievances with advertisers on the social media site X to court, filing a new federal lawsuit in Texas Tuesday in which he claims a group deliberately plotted to organize a “boycott” from advertising on the social media platform following his 2022 takeover. The influential group, Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), is accused of antitrust violations after conspiring “to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising from Twitter,” Musk alleges, citing the group’s concerns over the drop in safety standards. The group’s aim, it says...

So-called “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk apparently thinks that free speech means forcing advertisers to buy ads on his website by suing them, as his latest lawsuit has sued advertisers for pulling their ads from his platform. Admittedly, it’s tough to keep track of all of Elon Musk’s lawsuits. But the latest of these, just filed Tuesday in a Texas federal court, is especially bizarre and notable. The Associated Press reports that Musk and Twitter/X are now suing advertisers for leaving Twitter, despite that those advertisers likely pulled their ads...

The social media platform X — formerly Twitter — is suing a group of advertisers over their alleged mass boycott of the site after Elon Musk's takeover nearly two years ago. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday against the World Federation of Advertisers and its member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health, and Orsted. X claims the group's Global Alliance for Responsible Media coordinated a pause in advertising after Musk bought the platform in 2022 for $44 billion. The suit also accuses the companies of violating antitrust laws and depriving X of...

Escalating hostility with major advertisers, X has sued a coalition representing big-money brands for allegedly coordinating a boycott of the platform in violation of antitrust laws. The proposed class action, filed in federal court in Texas on Tuesday, accuses the World Federation of Advertisers of conspiring with companies to withhold advertising on X due to relaxed safety standards since Elon Musk assumed control of platform in 2022. In the wake of the takeover, 18 firms stopped ad campaigns with the platform and dozens more slashed spending, in several cases by...

X CEO Linda Yaccarino testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on online child safety on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024 in Washington. X, formerly known as Twitter, sued a group of advertisers alleging they coordinated an illegal advertising boycott against the social media company. X, formerly known as Twitter, sued a group of advertisers alleging they coordinated an illegal advertising boycott against the social media company. The suit was filed Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas Wichita Falls Division.