Federal Court Dismisses X Lawsuit Alleging Advertising Boycott

Richard Janvrin
By: Richard Janvrin
Legal
Federal Court Dismisses X Lawsuit Over Alleged Advertising Boycott

Photo by Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

Key Takeaways

  • The lawsuit was filed in 2024
  • Federal judge rules X failed to prove antitrust violations in advertiser boycott case
  • Lawsuit targeted major brands and WFA over alleged coordinated ad spending withdrawal

On Thursday, a federal court dismissed a lawsuit alleging that brands like CVS, Lego, Mars, and Colgate-Palmolive illegally boycotted the social media platform X, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

More on the Suit

In 2024, X sued a group of brands and the World Federation of Advertisers, alleging antitrust violations and a conspiracy to withhold billions of dollars in advertising on the platform "due to their concerns about X’s content and safety standards," the Journal said. 

X continued adding brands to the suit last year, including Nestle and Shell. 

However, a Texas federal judge dismissed the court, citing a lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim against various defendants. 

“The only harm X has asserted is that its customers collectively chose X’s competitors over X,” Senior U.S. Judge Jane J. Boyle wrote, per the Journal. “Although a group boycott is alleged, there is no antitrust violation here.”
The Journal reached out to X, WFA, and various brands, but didn't hear back. 
In the court filings, the brands say they reacted independently. There was also a motion in May 2025 to dismiss the suit in which the trade group said the lawsuit was “an attempt to use the courthouse to win back the business X lost in the free market.”

X Background

In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter and later rebranded it as X. With his acquisition, he loosened content moderation standards, and thus brands decided to withdraw their ads because they were concerned about their ads appearing next to content they didn't want to. 

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk wrote on X in August 2024.

Richard Janvrin is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire. He started writing as a teenager before breaking into sports coverage professionally in 2015. From there, he entered the iGaming space in 2018 and has covered numerous aspects, including news, reviews, bonuses/promotions, sweepstakes casinos, legal, and more.

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