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A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, which accused several major companies of an illegal advertising boycott. X Corp had alleged that firms including Unilever, Mars, and Orsted, along with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), conspired to deprive the platform of billions in revenue. However, U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle ruled on Thursday that X failed to demonstrate that it had suffered harm under federal competition laws.
X Corp's lawsuit, filed in a Texas court in 2024, came after the platform saw a decline in advertising revenue following Musk's acquisition of Twitter in 2022.
The tech billionaire had ushered in sweeping changes to the platform after purchasing it, including reinstating the accounts of controversial figures and lifting some content restrictions.
Within a year of Musk acquiring X, advertising revenue had fallen by more than half as some firms paused or reduced their promotions on the site.
The lawsuit claimed the group of advertisers had acted against their own economic self-interest to conspire against the platform - saying this violated US antitrust laws designed to promote fair competition between companies.
At the time, Musk tweeted: "We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words. Now, it is war."
X Corp's lawsuit alleged the accused firms had unfairly withheld spending by following safety standards set out by a WFA initiative called Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm).
Garm's stated aim is to "help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetisation via advertising".
CVS and the other defendants denied any wrongdoing and, in counter-filings, urged Judge Boyle to dismiss the lawsuit.
They argued they had acted independently when making business decisions about when and where to spend advertising money, and said X had failed to illustrate otherwise.
Boyle appeared to agree, writing in an opinion filed alongside her judgement that Garm "did not buy advertising space from X to sell to advertisers nor did it, in such an arrangement, tell X not to sell directly to Garm's customers".
