Judge buries Musk's suit claiming advertisers illegally boycotted X

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (CN) — A federal judge in Texas dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s social media platform X Thursday accusing a group of advertisers of engaging in an illegal boycott.

In the lawsuit, X targeted the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a now-defunct initiative by the World Federation of Advertisers aimed at establishing safety standards to prevent advertisements alongside harmful social media content such as hate speech or terrorism.

X claimed GARM coordinated an illegal advertising boycott of the platform, costing it billions of dollars in revenue, after Musk purchased it in 2022 and made major changes to its staff and policies. The social media company brought antitrust claims against the federation as well as major advertisers like Shell, Lego, Pinterest and CVS Health.

Senior U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle ruled X had not adequately claimed the advertisers and their global federation had violated antitrust laws. The George W. Bush appointee noted X accuses the advertisers of coordinating “to pursue their own collective interests as to where they place their advertisements.”

“The very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not state an antitrust claim,” the judge wrote.

Boyle also dismissed X’s claims against Shell International, Lego A/S and Nestlé S.A. for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Musk’s takeover of the platform led to a fraught relationship with advertisers. In a different lawsuit filed in 2023, X is pursuing claims against progressive watchdog Media Matters over a report it published about antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on the platform that led to a separate exodus of advertisers.

When the GARM lawsuit was filed in 2024, Musk declared “war” in a post about the suit on X. Former X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a video statement announcing the suit that GARM had “organized a systematic illegal boycott” against X.

“That puts your global town square, the one place that you can express yourself freely and openly, at long-term risk,” Yaccarino said. “People are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is constricted. No small group of people should be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”

X and the World Federation of Advertisers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit’s dismissal.