Elon Musk’s X sues Media Matters after report about ads containing anti-Semitic content
Elon Musk made good on his promise to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters after the liberal watchdog group issued a report that posts “manufactured” on X to place ads for major brands appeared alongside anti-Semitic material.
Musk’s social media platform accused the watchdog group of essentially cooking the books in its quest to “drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.,” according to the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Texas.
The legal action comes as major companies including IBM, NBCUniversal and its parent company Comcast said last week they were no longer running ads on the platform, formerly known as Twitter, after Media Matters reported that their ads appeared next to material praising Nazism.
The Media Matters report also said that ads from Apple and Oracle were placed next to anti-Semitic material in the app. On Friday, the organization claims to have also found ads from Amazon, NBA Mexico and other companies alongside white nationalist hashtags.
But X maintains in its complaint that Media Matters “knowingly and maliciously” displayed ads alongside the hateful elements “as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform.”
The complaint also claims that Media Matters manipulated algorithms on the platform to create images of advertisers’ paid posts in addition to racist and inflammatory content. The pairs were “fabricated, inorganic and extraordinarily rare,” the suit alleges.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a statement that the X account used by Media Matters was the only account that saw some of the ads alongside the anti-Semitic posts in the report, the New York Times reported.
“If you know me, you know that I am committed to truth and justice. Here is the truth. Not a single authentic user on
“Only 2 users saw the Apple ad next to the content, at least one of which was Media Matters. Data wins over manipulation or accusations. Don’t let yourself be manipulated. Stand with X.”
The legal action comes after Musk promised to file a lawsuit against the liberal watchdog group and its backers over the weekend.
Media Matters said Monday that it stands by its reporting and expects to win if the case goes to court.
“This is a frivolous lawsuit intended to intimidate X’s critics into silence,” the nonprofit’s president, Angelo Carusone, said in a prepared statement.
Also on Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that his office was launching an investigation into “radical left” Media Matters for possible fraudulent activity related to the same report.
“We are examining the issue closely to ensure that the public has not been misled by the plans of radical left-wing organizations who would like nothing more than to limit freedom by reducing participation in the public square,” he said in a statement.
X has struggled with publicity since Musk took over the company last year for $44 billion. As the company struggles with revenue, it has had to implement massive cuts to X’s workforce.
He recently sparked outrage when he agreed with a user who claimed that “Jewish communities have been pushing exactly the kind of dialectical hatred against white people that they claim they want people to stop using against them.”
“You told the truth,” he tweeted in response last Wednesday.
Hours later he returned and clarified that he does not believe that hatred towards whites extends “to all Jewish communities.”
He posted Sunday that “nothing could be further from the truth” in addressing “false media stories” alleging he is anti-Semitic.
With post cables
