Elon Musk – Wikipedia
Elon Musk’s “X,” formerly Twitter, added a bunch of companies to its lawsuit that alleges they illegally boycotted its advertising service for political reasons. The firms include Lego, Nestlé, Tyson Foods, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate-Palmolive, Pinterest and Shell International.
The lawsuit paints a picture of a calculated retreat by some of the world’s biggest advertisers, allegedly orchestrated by the World Federation of Advertisers over fears that X—formerly Twitter—would abandon its commitment to brand safety under Elon Musk’s leadership. According to the complaint, the group was so alarmed that it planned a sweeping, coordinated freeze on ad spending.
The fallout was immediate and devastating. At least 18 major advertisers affiliated with the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) abruptly pulled their ads from Twitter, either in the U.S. or worldwide, in the chaotic weeks following Musk’s takeover in November 2022. Others, the suit claims, slashed their spending dramatically.
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The consequences, according to X, were catastrophic. The platform alleges it lost billions in ad revenue, and the financial wounds inflicted by the mass advertiser exodus continue to haunt the company to this day.
The lawsuit asserts that, “collective action among competing advertisers to dictate brand safety standards to be applied by social media platforms shortcuts the competitive process and allows the collective views of a group of advertisers with market power to override the interests of consumer.”
The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) is an industry initiative launched by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) in 2019. It aims to improve digital media safety by ensuring that advertising does not appear alongside harmful or inappropriate content. GARM brings together major advertisers, agencies, media platforms (such as Google, Meta, and TikTok), and industry organizations to establish brand safety standards, combat misinformation, and promote responsible media practices.
The alliance focuses on key issues like hate speech, misinformation, child exploitation, and violent content, working to hold platforms accountable for maintaining safe environments for brands and users alike.
In 2022 Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion. Since then he made a number of significant changes to the service such as reversing the company’s policies on censoring hate speech and other hostile content. Twitter also removed the limit on the number of characters that can be shared in a post. And added an edit post feature that allows users to change/edit a post after it has been uploaded.
