• Advertisers have hit back at X's lawsuit, which claimed they illegally boycotted the platform.
• In a legal filing, advertisers said there was no conspiracy and X disrupted its own business.
• The case centers on members of a now-defunct initiative, the Global Alliance of Responsible Media.

The advertisers and trade group targeted by an antitrust lawsuit from Elon Musk's X have hit back against its claims that they colluded to form an illegal boycott of the platform.

X is suing several major brands, including Mars, Lego, Nestlé, and Shell, alleging their participation in an ad industry initiative called the Global Alliance of Responsible Media, GARM, was tantamount to a conspiracy to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising" from X after Musk's takeover of the company, then known as Twitter.

X had claimed the alleged boycott resulted in it becoming "a less effective competitor to other social media platforms in the sale of digital advertising and in competing for user engagement on its platform."

In a joint motion filed on Wednesday seeking to dismiss the case, the defendants said the lawsuit was instead "an attempt to use the courthouse to win back the business X lost in the free market when it disrupted its own business and alienated many of its customers."

Founded in 2019, GARM was an initiative of the advertiser trade body The World Federation of Advertisers that aimed to provide the industry with a common language and frameworks to help categorize the kind of content that advertisers tend to want to avoid.

The categories ranged from obviously harmful content like child sex-abuse imagery, to content like violence, which different sorts of advertisers have varying risk appetites toward. The uptake of these frameworks was voluntary. X was previously itself a GARM member.

"None of the membership materials refers to boycotts, the exclusion of competitors, or the disclosure of competitively sensitive information," the WFA and advertiser defendants said in Wednesday's filing.

GARM discontinued operations after X filed its initial lawsuit last summer, saying the two-person operation lacked the resources to fight it. GARM's parent, the WFA, is still operating and remains a defendant in the case.

In Wednesday's filing, the WFA and the group of brands rejected the accusations of a conspiracy and said that advertisers — including non-GARM members —made their own individual decisions about pulling ad spend from X. It noted that X's own lawsuit said just 18 of GARM's more than 100 members stopped advertising on the platform.

X's advertising revenue had plummeted after Musk took control of Twitter in 2022. Under his leadership, the company fired reams of staff who had been responsible for areas like brand and platform safety, loosened content moderation rules, and brought back controversial banned accounts.

Some of X's original legal argument was built on a prior probe from the House Judiciary Committee, led by its Republican chairman Jim Jordan. The committee published an investigation last summer that alleged GARM and its members colluded to boycott platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other conservative-leaning media content they disfavored.

The WFA and the advertiser defendants said in the latest filing that even if marketers had chosen to stay away from X for political reasons, this would be protected by the First Amendment as an act of free speech and wouldn't be within the scope of antitrust law.

The WFA and some of the advertiser defendants — many of which are headquartered outside of the US — are also seeking to dismiss the case, which was filed in a Texas court, for lack of proper jurisdiction.

The WFA, CVS Health, and Nestlé declined to comment. X and the advertiser defendants — Mars, Ørsted, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate-Palmoliver, Lego, Pinterest, Tyson Foods, and Shell — didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

This month, X dropped its claims against the video platform Twitch, which was also previously a defendant in the case. X's court filing didn't state a reason, but the dismissal was brought "without prejudice," which means X could potentially sue Twitch again over the ad-boycott dispute. Last month, X had told the judge presiding over the case that the two companies had reached an agreement for the claims to be dropped if Twitch met conditions, which it didn't detail, this year.

Unilever was also initially named as a defendant in the original lawsuit, but reached an unspecified agreement with X and was dropped from the case in October.

Read the filing below:

• At the World Federation of Advertisers conference, it was clear marketers are under pressure.
• Tariffs, DEI rollbacks, the potential for ad budget cuts — it's a lot.
• But CMOs are a creative bunch. They told me they're hopeful marketing can steer brands through.

"Snafu: Situation normal, all f—d up."

Stephan Loerke, CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers, dropped this f-bomb — part of an acronym coined by the US military during the Second World War — onstage at the ING Arena at the trade body's recent flagship event in Brussels. He said it was an apt way to describe how marketers feel three months into 2025.

Yet marketers will often say they're at their most creative when they're under pressure. (Just don't mention cutting their budgets.)

The duality was on full display at the glitzy conflab, replete with snazzy onstage graphics and a house band playing electropop in between sessions. Speakers from brands like Mastercard, L'Oréal, and Kraft Heinz painted an optimistic vision to the 2,000-strong audience about how marketers could position their companies for growth, despite the tectonic shifts happening around them.

Between the prospects of tariffs, inflation, the rising cost of living, global conflicts, political polarization, and the disruptive impact of AI, there's a lot for a CMO to keep on top of.

Almost all (99%) of the roughly 600 marketers polled in a recent survey from the WFA and the consultancy firm Oxford said economic and geopolitical uncertainty — and the need to quickly adjust priorities and budgets — would be important or more important in the next five years. Roughly two-thirds (68%) said they'd anticipate these pressures would grow.

One knock-on effect of that is ad budgets are likely to take a hit. Marketing is often the first department to feel the impact of cost cuts. In separate reports last month, analysts from Madison and Wall, as well as Magna Global, trimmed their US ad market forecasts for 2025.

Backstage, Loerke told me that many marketers felt the uncertainty was at an inflection point, which was driving conversations about how to prove marketing's value as CMOs prepare for a tough year.

"Usually, when that conversation starts, it means that actually there's a recession coming," said Loerke, a former marketer at L'Oréal in the 1990s.

I interviewed six top global CMOs and spoke with other marketing execs attending the Brussels event to get a sense of what's top of mind for marketers as they navigate the turbulence.

Marketers are scenario planning while trying to keep on track with their long-term strategies

Many marketers are spending a significant portion of their time locked in scenario-planning meetings with their CEOs, chief finance officers, and other members of the C-suite.

"Back in the day, when I started in the business, it was an A plan and a B plan," said Diana Frost, global chief growth officer at Kraft Heinz. "Well, that's a C plan and a D plan now."

With the costs of raw materials going up, marketers in sectors like consumer goods and food are having to make rapid-fire decisions about prices, packaging, and product formulations. Consumers' willingness to pay more at the checkout is often partly determined by years of brand-building designed to make them choose one product over another.

Patrik Hansson, EVP of marketing and innovation at the dairy company Arla Foods, said that while companies may encounter a year with disappointing growth, it's important for CMOs to stick to their plans — a five-year horizon rather than a six-month horizon, say — to ensure their marketing has a long-term impact.

"If you have a way forward, then a bit of noise, a bit of turbulence doesn't distract you from the long term, and that's what we're trying to focus on because otherwise, you get lost in this," Hansson told me.

It all adds up for marketing measurement

Over coffees, canapés, and cocktails, job security was a hot topic at the event.

A February survey published Tuesday from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business found that 63% of the 281 US marketing leaders polled felt increased pressure from their chief finance officers, up from 52% in 2023.

"One of the big problems is that the advertisers themselves are shedding people in an attempt to cut costs, so CMOs are risk-averse and look for signs of success that are supposedly measurable," Nick Manning, founder of the media consultancy Encyclomedia, who was in attendance, told me after the event.

"Saying 'trust me, it'll work' doesn't play in a world where short-term is the only term," Manning added.

Diageo is often seen across the industry as a poster child for demonstrating marketing effectiveness.

In 2023, it began working with a tech company called CreativeX. CreativeX uses artificial intelligence to generate a "creative quality score" that predicts whether digital marketing assets will be effective.

The drinks giant is also using an AI listening tool, developed with its partners Share Creative and Kantar, to predict consumer trends. One insight: 2025 is the year of "zebra striping," in which consumers cut down on their alcohol consumption by alternating between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.

Diageo's marketers also use an internal tool called Catalyst to get immediate access to data to help them make planning decisions.

"I want our marketers to have a business mindset and delve into the insights we can now access to plan spend, design campaigns, create content, and collaborate with partners based on what scenario best delivers the brand-building outcome that drives growth," said Cristina Diezhandino, Diageo's chief marketing officer.

At Kraft Heinz, Frost wants to instill a sense of swagger and pride within the marketing department — and she's got the receipts to back it up. The Heinz brand, in particular, has marked compound annual revenue growth of 6% over the past two years, adding around $600 million in top-line growth to the broader Kraft Heinz business, Frost said. She credits the creation of its internal digital ad agency, "The Kitchen," and also the repeatable frameworks it's put in place for Heinz marketers around the world to help grow the brand further.

"When you have these proof points of growth, then you can build the pride, then you can build the momentum of how it's actually possible as you roll it out to the rest of the portfolio, " Frost said.

Jitters over brand safety and DEI rollbacks loomed large

"Brand safety" was the elephant in the room at the event.

Unspoken but present were lawsuits filed by Elon Musk's X and the video platform Rumble, plus a Jim Jordan-led House Judiciary Committee investigation. These took aim at the WFA's now-shuttered voluntary initiative, the Global Alliance of Responsible Media, and more than a dozen of its advertiser members. The lawsuits and the probe, which are ongoing, allege GARM's members illegally colluded to boycott platforms like X and Rumble. While GARM closed, which the WFA said was due to its limited resources, the WFA has said it adhered to competition rules and would prove so in court. The WFA told me in Brussels it didn't want to discuss the matter.

(Side note: For all its glamour, the WFA's event had been originally due to take place at the far-flung locale of Mumbai, India, but after the legal troubles arose, it was shifted to Brussels, where the WFA is headquartered. The WFA partnered with the local advertising trade body, the UBA, to run the main show.)

While GARM was off limits, marketers did open up about another topic that's become newly contentious, particularly in corporate America: the anti-woke movement and the vocal backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Gael de Talhouet, VP of brand building at the Swedish hygiene company Essity, said marketers should be mindful that "a brand is not a political stage."

"It's something where you tell people about the good you bring to the world," he added.

Rupen Desai, CMO and venture partner of the Una Terra Early Growth Fund, said the recent DEI rollbacks had revealed two types of companies: those where DEI was hard-coded into the company's economic model and those that were investing in these sorts of programs just because everyone else was.

For the second type of company, Desai said the recent movements are a "huge sigh of relief."

"When you're grappling with growth, or the lack of it, and this investment isn't really yet showing results, it's probably easier to take a step back," Desai said.

But he added: "The companies who continue on this journey will be bigger winners than the ones who took a step forward, took a step back."

As the sun set over the Palais de la Bourse, the former Brussels stock exchange, where the event's gala dinner was held, the mood was buoyant, despite the complexities the people in the vast dining room were having to navigate this year. (And sure, perhaps the frequently topped-up wine, exquisitely cooked duck, and performance from the French comedy TikTok creators Supermassive helped a tiny bit.)

CMOs are complex creatures, after all, as David Wheldon, the new WFA president and chief brand officer of the lottery group Allwyn, summed up.

"A marketer has to have this strange combination of optimism and belief in what you're doing personally, and belief in what you're doing for your company and your customers — and you have to be aware of the context you're in," Wheldon said. "If you flip-flop because the context is changing rapidly, then you cause yourself a problem."

• Ad companies targeted by a Rumble lawsuit say it's an attempt to "weaponize" antitrust laws.
• Rumble accused Diageo, WPP, and an ad trade group of colluding to boycott the platform.
• The ad companies say Rumble wasn't an attractive ad platform and that there was no conspiracy.

Advertisers targeted by the video platform Rumble in a lawsuit are hitting back.

Drinks giant Diageo, WPP and its media buying arm GroupM, and trade body the World Federation of Advertisers are seeking to dismiss a lawsuit filed against them last year by Rumble. They accuse the platform, which is popular among conservative audiences, of trying to "weaponize" antitrust laws to force advertisers to do business with it.

In Rumble's complaint, initially filed in a Texas court in August, the platform alleged that advertisers and agencies "collectively agreed to restrict the output of digital advertising on social media platforms"
through the WFA's now-defunct initiative, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.

Rumble's lawsuit said this conspiracy resulted in higher advertising costs, reduced earnings for content creators, and inhibited the platform's growth and profitability.

In their response filed Friday, the WFA, WPP, and Diageo said the case should be dismissed because it didn't successfully allege an agreement, a relevant market, or harm to competition.

The filing says there are "perfectly good non-boycott reasons" why those advertisers and others "have chosen not to advertise on Rumble, which prides itself on lax content moderation and brand-safety measures."

Rumble, the WFA, and Diageo didn't respond to requests for comment. WPP declined to comment.

Rumble's case and the response from advertisers are notable in part because of the suit's similarities to one filed by Elon Musk's X, also in August last year. X is suing the WFA and almost a dozen advertisers who were GARM members — including big names like Mars, Shell, and Nestlé — alleging they conspired to pull ad dollars from X following Musk's takeover of the company formerly known as Twitter.

Those advertisers haven't yet filed a response.

Founded in 2019, GARM was a US-based initiative that aimed to provide frameworks and common language for the ad industry regarding harmful and sensitive content categories like hate speech, online piracy, and violence. Adherence to its Brand Safety Framework was voluntary, and it didn't single out any websites for advertisers to avoid by name.

However, some conservatives argued that GARM had an anti-conservative bias. The House Judiciary Committee, led by its chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, published an investigation last summer that alleged GARM and its members colluded to boycott platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content they disfavored, such as X and Joe Rogan's podcast on Spotify.

The WFA has maintained that it will contest the allegations and is confident that it adhered to competition rules.

In August, GARM ceased operations in the wake of Rumble and X's lawsuits, with the WFA saying at the time that the not-for-profit organization only had limited resources.

Advertisers avoided Rumble because its content was risky, the filing says

On its website, Rumble says its video platform grew amid the rise of "cancel culture" and as other services tightened their content moderation rules. Rumble says it supports "diverse opinions, authentic expression, and the need for open dialogue."

The motion to dismiss the suit from Diageo and others says this commercial decision also made Rumble riskier for brands.

"No sweeping conspiracy is needed to explain why brands would have separately and unilaterally chosen not to advertise on Rumble, which prides itself on allowing content other sites will not allow," the legal filing reads. It also says Rumble's lawsuit doesn't sufficiently provide evidence of a group boycott.

In its complaint, Rumble said that starting in June 2023, it contacted GroupM and Diageo separately about advertising on the site, but both parties declined to do so. Rumble speculated in its complaint that Diageo and GroupM didn't advertise with the company because it hadn't implemented policies based on GARM's brand safety standards.

In their legal filing, the advertising companies contend that this didn't amount to a collective agreement to withhold ad dollars from Rumble. While marketers used the GARM framework to inform their ad decisions, GARM didn't direct them to boycott a platform that didn't adhere to it or dole out consequences to advertisers who ignored it, the legal filing says.

"Rumble tries to convert a trade association initiative's short-lived, voluntary 'Brand Safety Framework' into a global conspiracy," the filing says.

The filing argues that brand-safety standards are pro-competitive rather than harming competition because they help protect advertisers and make it easier to transact across various platforms.

"The fact that Rumble did not grow as fast as it wanted does not suggest that the advertising it wished to host evaporated as opposed to landing at a different platform that is more attractive to advertisers," the legal filing says.

Advertisers being sued by Rumble say the case could have 'troubling' First Amendment implications

Rumble is seeking a "permanent injunction" against the WFA, WPP, and Diageo, prohibiting them from continuing their alleged conspiracy to withhold ad dollars from the platform.

The companies argue in their filing that this would have "troubling" First Amendment, or free speech, implications.

"Just as it would violate the First Amendment for the government to tell Rumble what content it must host on its website, it would be similarly unconstitutional for this Court to order Defendants to speak on Rumble," the WFA, WPP, and Diageo argue in their filing.

In addition, they argue that Rumble's choice of court is inappropriate because the case "has nothing to do with Texas, much less the Northern District of Texas" because none of the companies operate their businesses out of the state. The Northern District of Texas has become a favored venue among conservatives, with many of its judges appointed by Republican presidents. Rumble itself is headquartered in Canada.

X's lawsuit against advertisers was also filed in the same court in the Northern District of Texas.

Advertising industry executives are closely following the X and Rumble cases and the House Judiciary Committee's ongoing probe of GARM and its members. Some industry insiders previously told BI that while they felt the cases were without merit, the outcomes of the separate actions could stymie future responsible advertising initiatives.

• X is suing more advertisers over what it claims was a coordinated ad boycott.
• Nestlé, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate, Lego, Pinterest, Tyson Foods, and Shell have been added to the suit.
• Elon Musk's company is seeking damages, alleging the boycott hurt its competitiveness in digital advertising.

Elon Musk's X is suing more big advertisers as part of a lawsuit that alleges they collectively conspired to boycott advertising on the platform following his takeover of the company.

In an amended complaint filed in a Texas court on Saturday, X added Nestlé, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate, Lego, Pinterest, Tyson Foods, and Shell as defendants to its lawsuit, which was originally filed in August.

The complaint alleges that members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a now-defunct initiative from the advertiser trade body the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), illegally conspired to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue" from X.

The WFA, CVS Health, Mars, Ørsted, and Twitch are the other defendants in the case.

The WFA declined to comment. The trade body has previously said that it planned to contest the suit and that it was confident in its adherence to competition law.

X, Nestlé, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate, Lego, Pinterest, Tyson Foods, and Shell did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, which were sent outside normal US business hours.

Founded in 2019, GARM was a US-based initiative that aimed to provide common frameworks to be used by media owners, advertisers, and agencies to categorize harmful content such as hate speech, misinformation, and online piracy.

The uptake of the frameworks was voluntary, and many online platforms and agencies adopted them as what became known as a "brand safety floor" — content that was deemed unsuitable for advertising to fund or appear next to. X was also previously a member of GARM.

GARM discontinued operations after X filed its initial lawsuit, saying that, as a small nonprofit organization, it lacked the resources to fight it.

In its latest legal filing, X alleges that the WFA "organized an advertiser boycott of Twitter through GARM, with the goal of coercing Twitter to comply with the GARM Brand Safety Standards to the satisfaction of GARM."

The complaint claims that at least 18 members of GARM stopped advertising on Twitter in the US or worldwide between November and December 2022. Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter closed in October of that year.

"As a result of the boycott, X became a less effective competitor to other social media platforms in the sale of digital advertising and in competing for user engagement on its platform," the complaint reads.

Twitter's ad revenue plummeted following Musk's takeover of the company. Many advertisers shunned the platform after a number of sales and safety staff were let go and controversial banned accounts were allowed back on the site.

X claims in the suit that GARM members "collectively acted to enforce Twitter's adherence" to its brand safety standards by boycotting the platform. The company is seeking "trebled compensatory damages" and injunctive relief for what it claims are violations of US antitrust laws.

The WFA, alcohol giant Diageo, and the ad agency holding company WPP are also facing a similar lawsuit from the video site Rumble, which alleges they collectively agreed to restrict advertising on social platforms, including Rumble. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is also investigating whether advertisers' and agencies' participation with GARM led to conservative media being demonetized.

• Elon Musk's X plans to add more defendants to its lawsuit against advertisers.
• The lawsuit centers on the Global Alliance for Responsible Media and its advertiser members.
• A new legal filing says X wants to add "multiple additional defendants" to the suit.

Elon Musk's X is getting ready to add more defendants to its lawsuit that accuses advertisers of illegally conspiring to boycott the platform.

X initially filed its lawsuit in a Texas court in August. The complaint alleges that members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a now defunct initiative from the advertiser trade body the World Federation of Advertisers, colluded to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue" from X, formerly Twitter.

The current defendants in the case are the WFA, CVS Health, Mars, the energy company Orsted, and Twitch. (Twitch was added to the lawsuit later than the other defendants. Unilever was initially named as a defendant but reached an agreement with X and was dropped from the suit in October.)

A joint filing from X's legal representatives and counsel for the defendants said X planned to file a second amended complaint "in which it will add multiple additional defendants."

The filing said X would share a draft of its second complaint with the current defendants by January 20 and file it with the court by January 25.

Reps for X, CVS, Mars, Orsted, and Twitch didn't respond to requests for comment.

A WFA spokesperson declined to comment. The WFA has previously said that it intends to defend itself in court and that it is confident the outcome will demonstrate that it adhered to competition law.

'Brand safety' is a growing political flash point

News that X could add more defendants to its suit comes at a fraught time for marketers and for the practice of "brand safety."

Much of X's lawsuit against GARM and its members was based on an investigation by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, into whether advertisers were illegally banding together to demonetize conservative platforms and voices in violation of antitrust law. Jordan continues to investigate advertisers' and agencies' work with GARM.

The Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee published their own report last month accusing Jordan of abusing his oversight power.

Their report argued that Jordan and his allies' goal was "not to conduct antitrust oversight as they claim, but rather to silence criticism of harmful online content and those who promote it."

Russell Dye, a spokesperson for the committee, said its investigation proved the collusion of left-wing advocates to secretly censor conservative speech.

"Those in the media and elsewhere that deny the collusion supported by clear documentation are themselves pushing disinformation," Dye said in a statement.

GARM discontinued operations after X sued it, saying that as a small, nonprofit organization, it lacked the resources to fight the lawsuit.

The WFA is also facing a separate lawsuit from the video site Rumble, which accuses GARM, drinks giant Diageo, the ad agency holding company WPP, and its media arm GroupM of collectively agreeing to restrict advertising on social platforms including Rumble. In November, Texas' attorney general, Ken Paxton, launched an investigation into the WFA over advertiser boycotts.

This month, Meta announced plans to shake up its content-moderation policies in the US, which had some advertisers worried that the tech giant was loosening its brand-safety standards. But unlike in the past, there hasn't been any public suggestion that brands intend to pull ad dollars from Meta in response. Advertising insiders told BI that it was partly a reflection of how reliant marketers had become on Meta, but also that advertisers had become more cautious about publicly criticizing or boycotting platforms and media given the political environment.