Elon Musk follows through on Media Matters lawsuit threat

Elon Musk sues Media Matters in Texas over ads near offensive content. Anti-SLAPP provisions don't apply in federal court.

Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against Media Matters over its reports alleging that high-profile ads are being served next to antisemitic posts. The lawsuit was filed in Texas, where anti-SLAPP provisions don't apply in federal court.

According to Musk's lawyers, Media Matters manufactured the ad placements it reported last week, causing IBM and other high-profile advertisers to suspend ad spending on Musk's social media platform. Musk's complaint alleges that Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers' posts on the platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical users experience on the platform.

The lawsuit further claims that Media Matters created an account that exclusively followed "fringe accounts" and those associated with large brands advertising on the platform. The company alleges that Media Matters achieved its goal of getting ads from major brands to appear adjacent to inflammatory, fringe content.

Though the lawsuit is an admission that the ads were served, it also reveals that only Oracle hasn't withdrawn advertising. Musk's company is accusing Media Matters of interfering with advertiser contracts, business disparagement, and interference with prospective economic advantage. They seek unspecified damages and to force Media Matters to remove its article alleging the posting of ads adjacent to antisemitic content.

Media Matters president Angelo Carusone has called the lawsuit a frivolous attempt to silence critics, while Musk and his lawyers have not responded to questions.

The US has laws designed to protect publishers from printing negative publicity about individuals and companies, generally referred to as strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits. Whether that's true of the case in Musk's lawsuit against Media Matters will be up to the courts to decide. By choosing to file the lawsuit in Texas's 5th District court, Musk's lawyers are suing Media Matters where there are rules against anti-SLAPP lawsuits.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 that Texas's anti-SLAPP rules don't apply to federal cases, meaning Media Matters won't be able to move to dismiss the case on the basis that it's a SLAPP suit, which is exactly what the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) moved to do in the suit Musk's company filed against it in August.

Musk has also threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League as a source of his company's sinking advertising revenue, though that lawsuit doesn't appear to have materialized. In an all-hands meeting at Musk's company, CEO Linda Yaccarino reportedly told employees to "put your heads together to bring new revenue into the company," while also urging staff to "be as fiscally responsible as possible" as the company's revenue slips further and further from the break-even point Musk claimed the company was approaching.