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X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has filed a lawsuit against a coalition of global advertising companies and several major corporations, accusing them of illegally conspiring to boycott the platform and cause it to lose revenue, Reuters reported.
X filed the lawsuit in federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers, Unilever, Danish renewable energy company Orsted, as well as Mars and CVS Health.
The lawsuit said the advertisers — working through the World Federation of Advertisers’ initiative known as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media — collectively withheld “billions of dollars in advertising revenue for X,” formerly known as Twitter.
She added that they acted against their personal economic interests in a conspiracy against the platform, which constitutes a violation of US antitrust law.
“When the marketplace for ideas is narrowed, too many people are hurt,” X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a statement about the lawsuit. “A small group of people should not have a monopoly on what generates revenue.”
Ad revenue on X declined for several months after Elon Musk bought the company in 2022. Some advertisers were wary of spending ad dollars under Musk, amid questions and concerns about their brands appearing alongside banned content that could be removed under the company’s previous owners, Reuters reported.
X seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against any continuing efforts to conspire to withhold advertising revenue from these advertisers.
The Federation of Advertisers launched the Responsible Media initiative in 2019 to help the industry address the challenges of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and monetize it through advertising.
Lawsuits alleging illegal boycotts could face a significant hurdle, Christine Bartholomew, an antitrust expert and professor at the University at Buffalo School of Law, told Reuters.
She said X must prove that there was an actual boycott agreement that each advertiser had joined, adding that “proving this requirement is not easy in cases where the agreement may be implied.”
Even if the lawsuit is successful, Bartholomew said, X cannot force companies to spend ad revenue on the platform.
