X is suing advertisers who boycott the platform. This was announced by the company's CEO, Linda Yaccarino, in an open letter posted on social media.
The CEO said that X had filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), and GARM members CVS Health, Mars, Orsted, and Unilever.
"This is not a decision we took lightly, but it is a direct consequence of their actions.The illegal behavior of these organizations and their executives cost X billions of dollars," Linda Yakkarino wrote.
X decided to take legal action following a recent report by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. According to Linda Yaccarino, the report stated that their investigation "uncovered evidence of an illegal boycott" of many companies, including X.
"Evidence obtained by the Committee shows that GARM and its members directly organized boycotts and used other indirect tactics to target disfavored platforms, content creators, and news organizations in an effort to demonetize and, in effect, limit certain choices for consumers," she said, referring to the report.
Linda Yaccarino argues that "the consequence, and perhaps the goal, of this boycott" was the desire to deprive X users of access to a "global urban square."
Elon Musk also commented on the situation. He declared war on advertisers boycotting X.
"We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war," he wrote on social media.
As a reminder, companies began to massively withdraw corporate advertising on X after the scandal last year. The Media Matters organization released a report showing that brand ads appear on the platform next to pro-Nazi content.
X sued Media Matters, accusing it of defamation. But the situation escalated when Elon Musk soon told advertisers to “go fuck yourself” for not cooperating with X.