Elon Musk has vowed to file a lawsuit against left-wing Media Matters for a “fraudulent attack” against his X social media platform. The threat of a lawsuit comes after several major companies pulled out of advertising on Musk’s social media network.
“The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” Musk declared on the X social media platform on Friday, before adding, “Their board, their donors, their network of dark money, all of them.”
Media Matters for America is the progressive outlet that specifically targets conservatives and has received funding from George Soros. Media Matters has a long history of putting pressure on companies that advertise on conservative networks or with right-wing personalities.
Media Matters published an article on Friday alleging that advertisements on the X platform were presented with content that the progressive outlet deemed to be anti-Semitic, white nationalist, anti-LGBTQ, and neo-Nazi.
By Saturday, several prominent companies had reportedly ceased advertising on X – including IBM, Lionsgate, Paramount, Warner Bros., Discovery, Comcast, NBCUniversal, Apple, and Disney.
Musk included a screenshot of a press release from X that claimed Media Matters “completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers.”
The news release said the social media company had experienced a “number of attacks from activist groups like Media Matters and legacy media outlets who seek to undermine freedom of expression on our platform because they perceive it as a threat to their ideological narrative and those of their financial supporters.”
The company formerly known as Twitter alleged that these groups “try to use their influence to attack our revenue streams by deceiving advertisers on X.”
The social media company alleged:
Once they curated their feed, they repeatedly refreshed their timelines to find a rare instance of ads serving next to the content they chose to follow. Our logs indicate that they forced a scenario resulting in 13 times the number of ads served compared to the median ads served to an X user. Of the 5.5 billion ad impressions on X that day, less than 50 total ad impressions were served against all of the organic content featured in the Media Matters article. For one brand showcased in the article, one of its ads ran adjacent to a post 2 times and that ad was seen in that setting by only two users, one of which was the author of the Media Matters article.
The statement added that “X will protect the public’s right to free expression” and “will not allow agenda-driven activists, or even our own profits, to deter our vision.”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in August that brands are “protected from the risk of being next to” potentially disturbing content. She added that the company’s content control would reduce risks for advertisers.
Yaccarino said on Friday, “We will continue to protect the freedom of voices and opinions of users on X! Stand with us.”
She added, “Protecting the freedom of speech could not be more urgent and important. Now, more than ever!”
“X has been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination,” Yaccarino stated. “There’s absolutely no place for it anywhere in the world.”
On Saturday, Media Matters issued a statement about the potential lawsuit from the tech billionaire.
“Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Musk is a bully who threatens meritless lawsuits in an attempt to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate,” said MMFA president Angelo Carusone. “Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified. If he does sue us, we will win.”
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