Musk Announces ‘Thermonuclear’ Lawsuit Against Media Matters
Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, announced on Saturday that he would be filing a lawsuit against the far-left watchdog group Media Matters over a “fraudulent attack” the group made against X he claimed was intended to undermine free speech.
On Thursday, Media Matters published a story claiming that X had been placing ads for major corporations alongside Nazi-related content. After the story was published, multiple corporations announced that they would be pulling ads from X, including Apple and IBM. This is a common tactic of Media Matters designed to take down any companies, entities or individuals who do not follow the far-left narrative — publishing smear pieces meant to scare advertisers into pulling funding.
Musk announced the lawsuit in a post on X early Saturday morning, vowing to file the lawsuit the moment the courts opened on Monday.
“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,” Musk said, suggesting that the lawsuit would target the board and their “network of dark money.”
In a press release, Musk argued that the Media Matters hit piece “completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers.”
The tech billionaire went on to affirm that X was committed to promoting free speech on the social media platform, even speech that others may find objectionable — noting that the people have the right to decide what to read or watch.
“Despite our clear and consistent position, X has seen a number of attacks from activist groups like Media Matters and legacy media outlets who seek to undermine freedom of expression on our platform because they perceive it as a threat to their ideological narrative and those of their financial supporters,” the press release read.
Musk then pointed out that Media Matters had created a “contrived” experience by making an alternate account and curating what posts appeared on its timeline.
“Once they curated their feed, they repeatedly refreshed their timelines to find a rare instance of ads serving next the content they chose to follow,” he explained, noting that X logs showed that only 50 out of the 5.5 billion ad impressions the day Media Matters pulled its research from were served alongside the supposedly Nazi-related content highlighted by the far-left watchdog group.
For one “brand showcased in the article, two of its ads served adjacent to 2 posts, 3 times, and that ad was only seen in that setting by one user, the author of the Media Matters article,” Musk added.
Other corporations that have announced a pause in ads on X in the aftermath of the Media Matters hit piece include Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Lionsgate and Paramount Global.
Meanwhile, conservative Christian satire site The Babylon Bee and independent media outlet Timcast have both pledged massive $250,000 ad buys for X to counteract the effects of Media Matters’ hit piece.
