X threatened lawsuits to pressure advertisers into returning, report says

A new report from the Wall Street Journal details just how far X owner Elon Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino have gone to claw back lost ad dollars. The strategy: leverage the courts.

According to the WSJ, Yaccarino and X’s legal team have threatened to pull several major advertisers into their sweeping lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), accusing the group of orchestrating an industry-wide boycott of the platform. As a result of the mounting legal pressure, the WFA shut down its nonprofit initiative, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.

The group was designed to help member companies avoid placing ads on platforms that spread harmful content.

When Musk took over the site formerly known as Twitter in 2022, nearly half of its top advertisers bailed. Musk’s overhaul of moderation and verification policies led to the reinstatement of banned far-right accounts and chaos over brand impersonation, thanks to the rollout of paid blue checkmarks without real verification. Then, another report alleged ads were being shown next to pro-Nazi content, so more brands fled. In response, X filed suit against Media Matters for America, the nonprofit that published that report.

Now, the alleged message from X’s leadership is explicit: advertise with us, or risk becoming a defendant.

Some brands, like Verizon and Ralph Lauren, have returned, per the Journal. Verizon has committed to $10 million in ad spend, with a possibility of ramping up to $25 million. Others, including Pinterest, have declined — and now appear as named parties in the WFA suit.

Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, was originally included in the lawsuit. A few months later, after pledging an undisclosed ad spend, its name was quietly dropped, the Journal reported.

The push to reel advertisers back in comes as X continues to chase shrinking revenue. According to the report, the platform pulled in just $2.6 billion in 2024, down from $4.6 billion in 2022, the year Musk took over. The xAI merger helped push the numbers up, and X’s ad revenue is expected to grow in 2025 for the first time under Musk’s ownership.

However, it's still projected to fall short of pre-acquisition levels.