IX/Elon Musk’s Twitter is suing a group of major companies, alleging that they are conspiring to illegally boycott the site.
It accuses food giants Unilever and Mars, private healthcare company CVS Health, and renewable energy company Orsted – and the trade body World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) – of robbing it of “billions of dollars” in advertising revenue.
The case relates to the period of 2022 shortly after Mr Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, when advertising revenue dropped.
Some companies were wary of advertising on the platform amid concerns that its new owner was not serious enough about removing harmful online content.
X said CEO Linda Yaccarino “people get hurt when the marketplace of ideas is blocked. No small group of people should control what money is made of”.
Mr Musk tweeted: “We’ve tried to be civil for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now, war.”
WFA and the alleged companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Advertising revenue at X fell by more than half in the year after Mr Musk bought the company as advertisers shunned the platform.
In its lawsuits, X alleges that the companies in question improperly withheld money following the security standards set by the WFA program called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm).
Garm’s stated purpose is to “help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its advertising monetization”.
By doing this, X claims that the companies have acted against their economic interests by colluding against the platform in violation of US antitrust, or competition, law.
Bill Baer, who was deputy attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division under Barack Obama, said the case was unlikely to succeed.
“As a general rule, a politically motivated boycott is not a violation of antitrust. It is protected speech under our First Amendment,” he said.
Professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth, of Vanderbilt University, said the boycott was “really trying to make a statement about X’s policies and their products”.
“That’s protected by the First Amendment,” he said.
Even if the lawsuit is successful, the social media site cannot force companies to buy advertising space on the platform.
UX is seeking unspecified damages and an injunction against any further attempts to conspire to withhold advertising revenue.
It said in its lawsuit that it used the same safety standards as its competitors and “meets or exceeds” those specified by Garm.
It also said that X has become an “inefficient competitor” in digital advertising sales.
Video-sharing company Rumble, favored by right-wing activists, made similar claims in a separate lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers on Tuesday.
