Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey told Elon Musk that his office is investigating Media Matters, the liberal organization pushing advertisers to leave the platform.
Last week, Musk promised that on Monday, X would be filing “a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.”
Media Matters published a report on November 16 claiming that X was placing ads from major companies next to “pro-Nazi content.” This led to NBC, Apple, Disney, IBM, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Lionsgate quickly pulling their ads from the platform.
X executive Joe Benarroch quickly debunked the reporting, explaining that a Media Matters reporter had created accounts and gamed the X server to create false impressions for their article, but the damage had already been done.
BREAKING: Media Matters created accounts and gamed the X server to create false impressions for their article
This isn’t journalism, this is a hoax pic.twitter.com/vO1HVDBuEo
— Jack Poso (@JackPosobiec) November 19, 2023
Stephen Miller, a former Trump adviser and founder of America First Legal, responded by saying “Fraud is both a civil and criminal violation. There are 2 dozen+ conservative state Attorneys General.”
Interesting. Both civil and criminal …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2023
Musk replied to Miller, saying, “Interesting. Both civil and criminal…”
My team is looking into this matter.
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) November 19, 2023
Attorney General Bailey jumped in and said, “My team is looking into this matter.”
Media Matters has long sought to control public discourse on social media by targeting advertisers and pressuring them to pull their ads over conservative content. This leads to platforms cracking down on right-wing discussions.
They have also been known to target conservative websites to remove advertisers and funding.
