On November 20, 2023, Elon Musk’s X Corp. initiated a legal action against Media Matters for America, alleging that the organization had deceitfully and “maliciously” insinuated to major advertisers that its content was featured alongside “Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content.”
The purported aim of Media Matters’ campaign was to drive advertisers away from the platform and dismantle X Corp.
Media Matters, established by Democratic operative David Brock, sought to have the lawsuit dismissed in an apparent bid to avoid a jury trial and the potential financial consequences of compensating X Corp. for damages.
Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas turned down Media Matters’ request on Thursday, just as he had previously denied their motion to halt the lawsuit from proceeding to the discovery phase in April and rejected their attempt to involve Tesla as an interested party in the lawsuit.
Despite Media Matters’ claims, O’Connor indicated that X Corp. had validly asserted three causes of action: tortious interference with existing contractual relations, business disparagement, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.
The case is set to proceed to trial on April 7.
Musk, who has consistently declared Media Matters as “pure evil,” reacted to the news of the dismissal on X by stating, “LFG!”
This indicated his preparedness to engage in a legal battle with the so-called watchdog.
The case largely centers on a report Media Matters published on Nov. 16, 2023, titled, “As Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content.”
The article alleged:
[Elon Musk’s] social media platform has been placing ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast) next to content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. The company’s placements come after CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed that brands are ‘protected from the risk of being next to’ toxic posts on the platform.
On Nov. 18, 2023, Musk tweeted, “The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.”
X Corp.’s original complaint noted that in November 2023 alone, Media Matters had published over 20 articles “disparaging both X Corp. and Elon Musk” — the latest campaign in an apparent years-long war against the platform to paint it as a “risky, unsafe platform for advertisers.”
According to the lawsuit, in order to produce the desired result for its preferred narrative about X, Media Matters “manipulated the algorithms governing the user experience on X to bypass safeguards and create images of X’s largest advertisers’ paid posts adjacent to racist, incendiary content, leaving the false impression that these pairings are anything but what they actually are: manufactured, inorganic, and extraordinarily rare.”
Despite allegedly manipulating the algorithm, the complaint claimed Media Matters still was not left with its desired pairings of ads and content, so it:
resorted to endlessly scrolling and refreshing its unrepresentative, hand-selected feed, generating between 13 and 15 times more advertisements per hour than viewed by the average X user repeating this inauthentic activity until it finally received pages containing the result it wanted.
The lawsuit claimed that Media Matters had hidden its alleged manipulation from both its readers and advertisers.
The Media Matters report mentioned several companies, including Apple, Comcast, Disney, IBM, and NBCUniversal, which halted their advertising, a move that was praised by the liberal organization in later revisions to the article.
Media Matters President Angelo Carusone vowed to defend his website at the time of filing, as reported by CNBC.
“This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to bully X’s critics into silence. Media Matters stands behind its reporting and looks forward to winning in court,” Carusone said in a statement.
Media Matters attempted to dismiss the case in March, claiming lack of personal jurisdiction, improper venue, and failure to state a claim.
However, their motion was unsuccessful and they are now expected to go to trial. CNBC reported on Friday that Media Matters had not responded to a request for comment.
