On Saturday, X owner Elon Musk announced that he would sue the left-wing publication Media Matters after the group smeared his social media site as anti-Semitic.
As reported by Breitbart, Musk declared in a post on the site, formerly known as Twitter, that “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.”
“This week Media Matters for America posted a story that completely misrepresented the real user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers,” Musk explained in another post. He also accused Media Matters of an effort to “misinform advertisers about the placement of their posts.”
The company has since claimed that, of the roughly 5.5 billion ad impressions on the day Media Matters made its claims, in which it declared with little evidence that such advertisements were appearing next to “pro-Nazi” content, a mere 50 ad impressions were shown next to the content in question. Musk said that these findings were the result of cherry-picking by Media Matters.
Following the report’s publication on Thursday, multiple major companies announced their plans to boycott advertising on X, including Apple, Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Comcast, and Lionsgate. Musk also lashed out at these and other companies, denouncing them as “oppressors of your right to free speech.”
Musk also took advantage of the situation to further promote X’s premium subscription service, which costs $16 a month.
“Premium+ also has no ads in your timeline,” said Musk. “Many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech.”
The anti-Semitism claims started after Musk agreed with a user’s post saying that left-wing Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have a “dialectical hatred against Whites.” Musk emphasized that his sentiments were not a criticism of all Jews, but of left-wing Jews in particular, especially in the broader context of the ongoing war in Israel. The original post was made in response to an advertisement depicting a young White man being lectured by his father for making anti-Semitic posts online, with many users pointing out that minorities are far more likely to hold anti-Semitic views than White people.