After the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary released a report accusing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) of colluding with companies to censor conservative voices online, Elon Musk chimed in. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk wrote that X “has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators” behind an advertiser boycott on his platform.

“Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution,” Musk wrote, leading several X users to suggest that Musk wants it to be illegal for brands to refuse to advertise on X.

Among other allegations, Congress’ report claimed that GARM—which is part of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), whose members “represent roughly 90 percent of global advertising spend, or almost one trillion dollars annually”—directed advertisers to boycott Twitter shortly after Musk took over the platform.

Twitter/X’s revenue tanked after Musk’s takeover, with Bloomberg reporting last month that X lost almost 40 percent of revenue in the first six months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. That’s worse than prior estimates last May, which put Twitter’s loss around one-third of its total valuation. Ars chronicled the worst impacts of the ad boycott, including sharp drop-offs in the US, where an internal Twitter presentation leaked to The New York Times showed Twitter’s ad revenue was down by as much as 59 percent “for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May” in 2023.

Last year, Musk sued other “collaborators” in the X boycott, including hate speech researchers, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and Media Matters for America (MMFA). However, his suit against the CCDH was dismissed this March, and Media Matters has claimed that Musk filing his MMFA lawsuit in Texas may be “fatal” because of a jurisdictional defect.

  • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
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    2 months ago

    TIL advertisement market is worth 1000 billion $.

    Assuming 2 billion people owning an internet capable device, that’s 500 $ per person.

    • ThatKomputerKat@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Such brilliant minds are truly beyond our understanding, clearly.

      The neat thing is that if you have a 401k or mutual funds or whatever there’s a good chance your money voted to give this fuckwit his 56 billion. Looking at you, Vanguard.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They’re afraid that Tesla’s stock price under a rational CEO will suffer a market correction and drop to where it should be. In other words, they want to keep Musk out of fear and greed.

  • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    And now you know why he’s donating to the Trump campaign.

    Because with the shift of power with project 2025 he can actually do this.

    • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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      2 months ago

      He’s also now donating to Trump, who I believe absolutely will punish people for Musk, if elected.

    • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Oh, nonono. You simply misunderstood him, because he’s such a genius. Didn’t you hear that he thinks he is literally the smartest engineer alive on this planet? Surely he’s not following suit of other nutjobs and simply trying to weaponize the judicial system in his favor because he essentially has unlimited money? This guy?? Nooooo…

      • r00ty@kbin.life
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        2 months ago

        He thinks he’s a lot of things. In reality, he’s just a living, breathing example of Dunning-Kruger in action.

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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      2 months ago

      For something that isn’t a crime. Why are we feeding this troll attention? Let him fall off the face of the earth and all his “projects” fail.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    What’s this? Another petty tyrant king demanding taxes from his serfs? These billionaires are fucked up in the head. They can’t just sit back, killing their livers, getting drunk and wasted on drugs on their yachts. No, they have to bend the world to their will at the expense of everyone else living in it. Even then, that isn’t enough.

  • Techpriest2@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Let’s just start with deporting two illegal immigrants from South Africa and see how that feels first.

    The video shows Kimbal talking about Zip2, the company Elon founded in 1995, and the challenge of raising money in the 1990s. The two men were amazed that anyone would invest $3 million in their company.

    “In fact, when they did fund us, they realized that we were illegal immigrants,” Kimball says in the video.

    “Well, I mean…” Elon says.

    “Yes, we were,” Kimbal replies.

    “I’d say it was a gray area,” Elon insists as the crowd laughs.

    “We were illegal immigrants…” Kimbal says, continuing his story about how they were sleeping in an office when raising money from venture capitalists.

    -Milken Institute interview, May 2013>

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      For now. You know what the Supreme Court will be paid to do.

      I can even outline it now. They will argue it violates the civil rights amendment which as it came later means it has higher priority over what came earlier. Then they will find some letter written by a random Founding Father arguing that the law should be written to only apply to members of nobility. There you go an Originalist argument against plain reading.

  • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Well I heard about a guy that told the collective advertisres of the platform to “go fuck themselves”, maybe this guy should be investigated.

  • fluxion@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Can X sue Musk for telling advertisers to go fuck themselves rather than addressing their concerns over his dumpster fire decisions?

        • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Institutional only now, and they’re all big companies who Musk strung along for the ride. He’s already on the hook with them, and they are obviously not pleased. He still the majority shareholder, and it’s lost 75% of its value since he took it over, and it’s clearly going to just bleed to death. They’ve already lost their investments.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            You say “institutional investors” as if it’s their money they’re losing. It isn’t. It’s everybody’s 401(k)s and IRAs, held through mutual funds that disenfranchise them from being able to vote their shares and put that power in the hands of the “institutions” (read: fund managers) instead.

            Point is, not only is Musk still fucking over real-people shareholders, they’re the second-class ones who can’t even do anything about it!

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                …Are you stupid? Do you know what things like Blackrock and Vanguard are, and what they do? The entire point of those companies is that they hold and invest other people’s money.

                • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Yes, they have more money than small nations. They are using their CAPITAL to invest. It’s literally a legal requirement to do so in all developed markets, and these are global companies doing so. They are spending your retirement doing it. They’re spending thebinsane amount of money you give them as a fee to do it. They’d be in court today if they were doing what you’re suggesting. In the US, anything designated as a retirement fund is only held my institutions (banks) that designate themselves as such, and SEC regulations prevent them from using any NON-CAPITAL cash from investing in this way.

              • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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                2 months ago

                Largest shareholders include BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc, Pentwater Capital Management LP, Pentwater Capital Management LP, Dimensional Fund Advisors Lp, State Street Corp, HAP Trading, LLC, Bluefin Capital Management, Llc, IJH - iShares Core S&P Mid-Cap ETF, and VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund

                Notice the mutual funds in here? That person is right.

  • CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    I was really hoping someone else said it already, but… is this really “Technology news”? It’s about a billionaire and advertising on his social media website.

    • machinin@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Social media’s impact on society is relevant to technology. I would even say it is one of the most important questions in relation to technology today. So, how an owner tries to silence criticisms of his social media site for spreading fascism seems relevant to me.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Dude literally told advertisers to go fuck themselves and is now like “well wait, I didn’t mean it like that” lmao