ALBAWABA – X, owned by Elon Musk, launched a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, an association composed of big advertisers, alleging that the group had broken antitrust rules by conspiring with businesses to discourage them from making purchases on the social media network.
According to the complaint, following Musk's takeover of Twitter in late 2022, the effective organization in the advertising sector decided "to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising from Twitter" as they were concerned that the network had strayed from brand safety guidelines.
The lawsuit, which was submitted to a federal court in Texas, argues that the coalition, known as GARM, formed a conspiracy with prominent companies such as CVS, Unilever, Mars, and the Danish energy firm Orsted, which resulted in X (known as Twitter then) suffering billions of dollars in losses.
Elon Musk, took to his owned platform to say “we tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words,” adding that “now, it is war.” He went on another post to encourage other companies that faced boycotts to do the same.
Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, wrote in an open letter to advertisers as reported by NYT that “the illegal behavior of these organizations and their executives cost X billions of dollars, adding that “people are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is undermined and some viewpoints are not funded over others as part of an illegal boycott.
