The world’s richest man and owner of the social media platform X (also known as Twitter) Elon Musk has announced on—where else—his own social media platform that he is launching a ‘thermonuclear’ lawsuit against the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America.
In his suit, Musk is alleging the nefarious organization caused his company major damage in lost ad revenue after they manipulated his site to show high-end advertisers’ posts next to antisemitic and racist content. According to Musk’s claims, Media Matters operatives created inauthentic accounts, intentionally followed fringe, far-right users on the platform, then kept refreshing the page, something no authentic user would do, until they got the result they wanted—that is, having major brand’s advertisement be next to racist posts by obscure accounts.
Media Matters took screenshots of ads by companies such as NBCUniversal, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Disney, and Oracle being next to disagreeable content on Twitter—all of those companies, with the exception of Oracle, have pulled their advertisements off of the platform, causing at least tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue for the X Corp.
Under Twitter’s previous leadership, around 90 per cent of Twitter’s total revenue came from advertisements. Since Musk took over, this information is not as easy to find, as the company is no longer publicly traded. Musk has taken multiple steps to diversify the platform’s revenue streams, such as introducing the Twitter Blue subscription. However, it is still very likely that the vast majority of the revenues still come from selling ads.
X Corp is now looking to recoup some of the lost ad revenue from Media Matters through legal means.
In their public announcement, they are also calling on all to support them to ‘protect free speech,’ as they put it.
What is Media Matters?
Media Matters was founded in 2004 by liberal activist and author David Brock. Their aim is to eradicate as much conservative, right-leaning content from American media as they can, through manufactured ‘public pressure’ campaigns like the one we saw in the case of Elon Musk’s X. That is despite the fact that mainstream news and entertainment media have been overwhelmingly left-wing for decades in the United States.
They are a 501(c) non-profit organization, which means they have to post public financial disclosures every year. In 2021, the latest available year, Media Matters for America raised $18.034 million to fund their nefarious left-wing activism.
Taking a look at their official website, it is clear that Elon Musk has been their primary target lately.
Two of the four articles currently on their front page are attacking him, and scrolling down, you have an entire feed of nothing but hit piece articles about Musk and his platform X near the bottom of the front page. While Media Matters’ animosity reportedly annoys Musk, this can also help his lawsuit, as this seems to be great evidence of malice on the leftist organization’s part.
Media Matters for America’s current president and CEO is a man named Angelo Carusone, who also served as the Democratic National Convention’s CEO for finance & administration in 2016. In 2010, Media Matters received a $1 million donation from hedge fund manager and billionaire activist George Soros. He still has his own dedicated landing page on Media Matters’ website for some reason, which describes him as a billionaire who ‘has donated billions of dollars through his Open Society Foundations philanthropic agency and to other progressive causes and organizations’.
Musk may be seeing some help coming his way in his legal battle. The activities of Media Matters have also caught the attention of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was re-elected in a landslide back in 2022, and who has announced he is launching an investigation into the potentially fraudulent activities of the leftist watchdog group.
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