Elon Musk’s X Sues Advertisers Accused of an ‘Illegal’ Boycott: ‘Now It Is War’

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk once told advertisers — including Disney — who pulled their ad dollars from X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, to “Go fuck yourself.” Now Musk’s X has filed an antitrust lawsuit against a trade group and several advertisers, alleging they conspired to withhold “billions” of dollars in ad spending over concerns that X would “deviate from certain brand safety standards for advertising.” X’s attorneys filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S.

District Court for the Northern District of Texas. A copy of the lawsuit is available at this link (via the New York Times). “We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk posted on X about the lawsuit.

Musk quoted a post by X CEO Linda Yaccarino, titled “An open letter to advertisers,” which said in part, “To put it simply, people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is undermined and some viewpoints are not funded over others as part of an illegal boycott… The illegal behavior of these organizations and their executives cost X billions of dollars.” X’s lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages and “injunctive relief under the antitrust laws of the United States.” According to the lawsuit, an initiative from industry trade group World Federation of Advertisers called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) represented a conspiracy — joined by dozens of advertisers — to “collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from X.

The lawsuit comes a little over a month after X announced that the company had “reinstated our relationship with the @wfamarketers Global Alliance for Responsible Media.