After the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary released a report accusing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) of colluding with companies to censor conservative voices online, Elon Musk chimed in. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk wrote that X “has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators” behind an advertiser boycott on his platform.
“Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution,” Musk wrote, leading several X users to suggest that Musk wants it to be illegal for brands to refuse to advertise on X.
Among other allegations, Congress’ report claimed that GARM—which is part of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), whose members “represent roughly 90 percent of global advertising spend, or almost one trillion dollars annually”—directed advertisers to boycott Twitter shortly after Musk took over the platform.
Twitter/X’s revenue tanked after Musk’s takeover, with Bloomberg reporting last month that X lost almost 40 percent of revenue in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. That’s worse than prior estimates last May, which put Twitter’s loss around one-third of its total valuation. Ars chronicled the worst impacts of the ad boycott, including sharp drop-offs in the US, where an internal Twitter presentation leaked to The New York Times showed Twitter’s ad revenue was down by as much as 59 percent “for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May” in 2023.
Last year, Musk sued other “collaborators” in the X boycott, including hate speech researchers, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and Media Matters for America (MMFA). However, his suit against the CCDH was dismissed this March, and Media Matters has claimed that Musk filing his MMFA lawsuit in Texas may be “fatal” because of a jurisdictional defect.
I was really hoping someone else said it already, but… is this really “Technology news”? It’s about a billionaire and advertising on his social media website.
Lol
Can X sue Musk for telling advertisers to go fuck themselves rather than addressing their concerns over his dumpster fire decisions?
He privatized and fired the board, remember? Nobody else inside to hold him accountable for being a non-stop fuckup.
There are the shareholders…
Institutional only now, and they’re all big companies who Musk strung along for the ride. He’s already on the hook with them, and they are obviously not pleased. He still the majority shareholder, and it’s lost 75% of its value since he took it over, and it’s clearly going to just bleed to death. They’ve already lost their investments.
You say “institutional investors” as if it’s their money they’re losing. It isn’t. It’s everybody’s 401(k)s and IRAs, held through mutual funds that disenfranchise them from being able to vote their shares and put that power in the hands of the “institutions” (read: fund managers) instead.
Point is, not only is Musk still fucking over real-people shareholders, they’re the second-class ones who can’t even do anything about it!
No.
Took me all of 2 seconds: here
…Are you stupid? Do you know what things like Blackrock and Vanguard are, and what they do? The entire point of those companies is that they hold and invest other people’s money.
Yes, they have more money than small nations. They are using their CAPITAL to invest. It’s literally a legal requirement to do so in all developed markets, and these are global companies doing so. They are spending your retirement doing it. They’re spending thebinsane amount of money you give them as a fee to do it. They’d be in court today if they were doing what you’re suggesting. In the US, anything designated as a retirement fund is only held my institutions (banks) that designate themselves as such, and SEC regulations prevent them from using any NON-CAPITAL cash from investing in this way.
Largest shareholders include BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc, Pentwater Capital Management LP, Pentwater Capital Management LP, Dimensional Fund Advisors Lp, State Street Corp, HAP Trading, LLC, Bluefin Capital Management, Llc, IJH - iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF, and VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund
Notice the mutual funds in here? That person is right.
New law, everyone must be nice to me :(
Boycotts are speech. Calling for boycotts is speech. I’ve been told by every corporate leader and the Supreme Court that spending money is a form of speech. I would think that a free speech advocate would appreciate these things. Of course, like all outspoken libertarians, Musk’s positions are not well considered, consistent, nor actually libertarian when it doesn’t suit his own business or ideological* interests. This dude sucks at everything he does and his success perfectly demonstrates the fallacy of meritocracy in this society.
- usually racist
everybody’s a libertarian until they lose money
So that is why he is donating to the Trump campaign. Best to get in the list of people he wishes to be persecuted sooner than later. Apparently it’s first come first serve.
Didn’t Musk tell his advertisers to leave the platform if they didn’t like Twitter anymore? Wouldn’t that alone make any tort dead upon filing?
Yeah it ties up a few billable hours but we’re not exactly talking about companies that can’t afford it.
Didn’t he tell them to “go fuck yourselves”?
Yeah, he said something like “You try to blackmail me? With money? Go fuck yourselves”.
Say Elonald, why don’t you follow your own advice…?
Til not buying things is blackmailing companies
advertising is the only competitive market left. I guess its easier for his ego to rationalize that everyone is teaming up against him than admit he’s a moron.
Twitter are criminals who steal our computing with proprietary software.
Cute of him to think he is as valuable as Israel
What do you mean by this? Elon is shit but he still has more value than a genocidal state running on hate imo.
Israel lobby made it illegal for US companies and government workers to boycott israel.
Ah okay, I figured I was misunderstanding what you meant.
What the actual fuck…
AIPAC lobbied for this shite and got it done…
Now remember this when your favourite daddy politicians tells you how congress can’t accomplish anything due to partisan grid lock ;)
I read a little on the wiki page you linked, and it seems it was in fact not passed.
The act consisted of House and Senate bills H.R. 1697 and S. 720 and died in Congress
I think I linked the wrong wiki
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/999
Here is the law.
Better wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
Looks criminal part is at the state level with 38 passing such laws.
Another day, another reason to be glad I live in Massachusetts!
When a business blames its customers for choosing to no longer be its customers, it’s a sure sign the business is declining. Depending on the severity, it’s often a sign the business is failing.
This applies here, as well as any time you see an article that millennials are killing <business/industry/etc>. It also applies when an entertainer blames their (potential) audience for not enjoying their work. See Jerry Seinfeld, Kid Rock, etc.
No one owes your business any patronage.
Actually if we’re referring to twitter’s customers, Musk changed it so that the customers aren’t the advertisers any more, but the users.
It’s a really good move for the quality of the thing. It realigns twitter’s incentives to those of the users, whereas before twitter was only serving advertisers.
While I would generally agree with that statement (and gave you an up vote for it), I feel like Musk twisted that away from any normal business move.
For instance, many customers aren’t paying for premium features. Rather, they were extorted into paying, because their professional lives depend on it.
And even after all that, it’s not like it’s catering to users on any level. No one is saying that Twitter is better now. Well, no one except the Russian bots and the Nazis.
I could have sworn I read that Musk was a free speech absolutist. Freedom for me but not for thee?
Musk wants freedom of speech for people. But his definition of “people” is very, very narrow.
This is the case with literally every conservative crowing about “free speech”. They want full freedom for themselves so that no matter what they say there can’t be any negative consequences or reactions, and everybody else can get fucked and die in an extermination camp
I could of sworn I read that shit doesn’t actually stink, but the pile of emperic evidence has led me to believe otherwise.
He certainly exercises his free speech to lie about his advocacy for free speech.
Nope he’s just a fascist hiding behind free speech.
Man who claims hes a libertarian wants government to punish those who don’t give him money.
He’s also now donating to Trump, who I believe absolutely will punish people for Musk, if elected.
Oh, nonono. You simply misunderstood him, because he’s such a genius. Didn’t you hear that he thinks he is literally the smartest engineer alive on this planet? Surely he’s not following suit of other nutjobs and simply trying to weaponize the judicial system in his favor because he essentially has unlimited money? This guy?? Nooooo…
He thinks he’s a lot of things. In reality, he’s just a living, breathing example of Dunning-Kruger in action.
For something that isn’t a crime. Why are we feeding this troll attention? Let him fall off the face of the earth and all his “projects” fail.
With the way Tesla is tanking, I’ll say
fall off the face of the earth
It ain’t flat.
That’s what you took away from that comment? Man… shilling for Elon must be a literal job for you.
Meanwhile, toilets lobby to jail everyone that refuses to eat out of them.