Elon Musk at the New York Times Dealbook Conference in November 2023 criticized advertisers for boycotting his social media platform X after other groups reported on media issues and the rise of extremist content since their purchases in 2022. Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for Captions in The New York Times
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Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images from The New York Times
Media issues, the liberal watchdog organization that billionaire Elon Musk sued in multiple lawsuits around the world continues to attack.
The group has called the “Vendetta-led campaign of honor-loss tourism,” Monday, suing masks against nonprofits in Texas, Ireland and Singapore in legal manipulation media, calling it a “vendetta-led tourism campaign for honour-lossed tourism.”
Advocacy groups’ lawyers allege that they are challenging Musk for technical reasons and are violating Musk’s own policies, which have been changed several months after the lawsuit was filed, as they must file X’s terms of service at the time of the lawsuit in San Francisco.
According to the Media Matters legal team, Musk’s defense of the lawsuit has crushed an organization that oversees conservative media, costs millions of dollars and fires more than 12 employees.
The lawsuit seeks damages for breach of contract and an order that forces Musk to withdraw lawsuits in Ireland and Singapore.
“The global campaign of X’s threats aims to punish media issues for exercising its core First Amendment rights on important issues of the public,” the lawsuit states. “This court must stop X’s antics and enforce the forum selection clause that X itself drafted.”
Media issues, X and Mask did not return requests for comment.
Media issues are linked to advertisers’ boycotts
The legal narrative between masks and media issues began in November 2023 after the group published a report documenting support for Musk’s anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
The report encouraged a boycott of X advertisers as major brands fled the platform a few months after the takeover of the 2022 site known as Twitter until Musk renamed in 2023.
A few days after the report was released, Musk wrote to X that he was preparing a “thermonuclear lawsuit against media issues.”
Musk’s lawyers filed a lawsuit alleging that media issues manipulate X’s algorithms to “manufacture” images of paid posts next to the extremist content in the ad.
Where Musk filed it became a dispute. Because it’s in the Northern Texas district and there’s no X or media issues.
NPR has revealed that federal judge Reid O’Connor, who is the main bed of the case, is a Tesla investor criticized for accepting “forum shopping” complaints, or has accepted a lawsuit filed outside of his jurisdiction in hopes of favorable treatment.
After allegations that Musk’s attorney was forum shopping in Texas, he changed the rules for X, so that all legal disputes would be filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas, where O’Connor is based. X is based in the Austin area, covered by federal courts for the Western District of Texas.
Musk will file additional lawsuits in Singapore and Ireland
Two international lawsuits first filed in Ireland in December 2023 against media issues, filed last July by X’s Singapore affiliates, creating misleading reports that nonprofits manipulate the platform and prompted a sharp drop in advertising. Both cases are still pending.
At the same time, there could be a fourth legal battle brewed in the UK.
X’s subsidiary Twitter UK has sent a letter request to media issues threatening honour and loss of lawsuits for the same lawsuit that led to other lawsuits.
For media issues, legal attacks are attempts to change liability for X-bleed advertising revenue.
The advertiser boycott touched Musk’s nerves in a 2023 interview at the New York Times dealbook summit. There, Musk cursed the companies that decided to use the F-word to retreat from the platform, telling the brand that they “don’t promote it.”
But Musk also sued the company for pulling back the ads. This expanded masks last month and expanded legal efforts, including CVS, LEGO, Nestlé, Tyson Foods and the Abbott Institute.
Musk is taking on a prominent White House post to advise President Trump, so some advertisers are under new pressure, according to ad insiders. This reported that ad insiders would spend money on advertising on X-type “insurance contracts” to avoid lawsuits, or be subject to regulatory scrutiny by the Trump administration.
On media issues, defenses against multiple lawsuits from Musk took away the group’s resources at once, chilling research and reports about Musk and his company.
For example, 10 months before the lawsuit began, the media staff member Eric Hananoki wrote 16 reports. Since the lawsuit, Hanano has not written a single report on Musk.
