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Elon Musk had promised to go all out against Media Matters in late 2023 over the nonprofit’s allegedly underhanded tactics in trying to paint X as a platform rife with anti-Semitic content. Now, that “thermonuclear lawsuit” that X filed shortly afterward is finally heading toward a high-profile trial.
As a reminder, in late 2023, several high-value advertisers including Apple, Disney, Comcast, IBM, etc., stopped their ads on Platform X after Media Matters revealed that some anti-Semitic content was found displayed alongside IBM ads.
Elon Musk responded to the resulting growing wave of boycotts by launching a legal action against Media Matters, alleging misconduct. According to X’s internal investigation, Media Matters curated a feed consisting of accounts that regularly posted “extreme and fringe content” and those belonging to several high-value advertisers. It then resorted to numerous updates to that feed to achieve the desired results:
“[Media Matters] resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-curated feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more ads per hour than the average X user saw, repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted: controversial content next to paid posts from X’s biggest advertisers.”
For its part, Media Matters has consistently stated that Elon Musk’s lawsuit was “frivolous” in nature and intended to “intimidate X’s critics into silence.”
This brings us to today, when U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, decided against Media Matter’s motion to dismiss X’s lawsuit, noting that the plaintiff “properly presented his allegations” and allowed the upcoming legal battle to proceed.
Today’s development comes as the simmering feud between Elon Musk and some of X’s biggest advertisers continues unabated. In the past, Musk has gone so far as to use a swearword to express their frustration with advertisers who boycotted.