Billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday threatened legal action against a coalition of some of the world’s largest companies over an “ad boycott scam” that has contributed to a decline in revenue for his social media platform, X.
Musk, who bought the company when it was known as Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, made the allegations in response to video of Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro’s congressional testimony this week about alleged advertiser collusion against conservative platforms.
“In light of the evidence uncovered by Congress today, X has no choice but to pursue legal action against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott scam.” Musk wrote to X.“We expect some states to consider criminal prosecutions.”
Shapiro testified Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing titled “Collice in the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM).”
GARM is an initiative founded by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFP), whose members include Disney, Coca-Cola, Toyota and Hershey, and dozens of other companies, to “address the challenges of harmful content and advertising monetization on digital media platforms,” according to the WFP’s website.
In his opening statement, shared by Musk, Shapiro called on Congress to rein in “censorship cartels like GARM and the executive branch” that oppose conservative views.
The subcommittee said it was considering “whether existing civil and criminal penalties and current antitrust enforcement efforts are sufficient to deter anticompetitive conspiracies in online advertising.”
They too A parliamentary investigation report was released. They commissioned an investigation by GARM, which they say is biased against conservative media.
“GARM and its members discussed strategies to block specific news outlets, including Fox News, The Daily Wire and Breitbart News,” the report said, pointing to emails from top officials associated with the coalition who said they “hated their ideology and bullshit.”
Representatives for GARM and X did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Musk’s post.
The billionaire has been at odds with corporate advertisers for months, as many chose to pull ads from X following his decision to loosen content moderation on the app.
He sued the liberal advocacy group Media Matters in November after it released a report alleging that X had placed advertisers’ posts next to those of neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
The lawsuit alleges the report was intended to “drive advertisers off the platform and destroy Company X.”
At the billionaire’s behest, X moved to a subscription-based model to cushion the impact of the losses.
While appearing at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit last fall, Musk acknowledged that declining ad spending could doom the company, telling advertisers who stopped spending to “fuck you.”
Musk struck a more conciliatory tone last month while attending the Cannes Lions conference in France, where he insisted his inflammatory comments were not aimed at all advertisers.
“First of all, it wasn’t aimed at advertisers as a whole. Respect for freedom of speech” Musk said.
The European Union last week launched a formal investigation into allegations that X had failed to police anti-Semitic content following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
