Texas Judge Dismisses X Corp’s Antitrust Lawsuit Against Advertisers

A Texas federal judge on March 26 dismissed Elon Musk’s lawsuit filed against a conglomeration of advertisers that boycotted X in the early days of the billionaire’s acquisition of the social media company.

U.S. District Court Judge Jane Boyle sided with multiple companies in the lawsuit, including the World Federation of Advertisers, granting their request to dismiss the claim on the basis that Musk’s company failed to show that it had suffered an antitrust injury.

“To state a claim … a plaintiff must establish that it has suffered antitrust injury,” Boyle wrote in the 56-page opinion. “X has not stated an antitrust injury.”

The case, filed in 2024, was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it can’t be refiled.

The Belgian-based World Federation of Advertisers, a conglomeration of over 150 of the world’s largest brands and more than 60 national advertiser associations, and its now-defunct brand safety initiative Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) organized an advertiser boycott of X’s platform.

The advertisers began pulling ads from the social media platform over concerns that Musk’s new brand and loosened content moderation would increase “hate speech” and violate the GARM’s safety initiative.

The federation represents about 90 percent of the global market, or about $700 billion spent annually on advertising.

Advertisers continued to buy ads from other social media companies and paid higher prices for that space, while X revenue declined rapidly.

In her ruling, Boyle said X Corp. did not allege other social media competitors directed the advertising boycott or that the federation sought to become a new social media company itself.

“Thus, a construction of X’s antitrust claim as one restraining it from competing with fellow social media companies is not ‘injury of the type the antitrust laws were intended to prevent,’” Boyle wrote in her opinion.

Musk reported the company experienced a significant loss of revenue as advertisers withdrew support.

“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk posted on X in 2022. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”

Musk filed the lawsuit three weeks after the U.S. House Judiciary Committee issued a report on GARM that detailed the organization’s power to “demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members.”

The federation shuttered GARM two days after Musk filed the lawsuit.

The World Federation of Advertisers did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the decision.

X Corp. also didn’t respond to a request for comment.