Elon Musk’s X has been waging a legal battle against the companies and advertising groups it claims conspired to boycott the company.
X dropped its claim Friday against Unilever, one of the largest consumer goods companies in the world. X filed to withdraw the claims in federal court, Reuters reported, citing a new agreement between the two companies.
In a statement, Unilever said it “reached an agreement with X, which has committed to meeting our responsibility standards to ensure the safety and performance of our brands on the platform.” Meanwhile, X said it was happy “to continue our partnership with them on the platform,” while pledging to continue “pursu[ing] our antitrust claims against the other defendants.”
While this might sound like a capitulation, it’s actually a major victory in the larger battle for free speech. (RELATED: Elon Musk Sues Literal Globalists For Alleged Advertising Conspiracy Against Him)
What this performatively civil legalese translates to is a dam breaking in the alleged advertising boycott of X. When Musk first bought Twitter, many major companies stopped advertising on the platform. It likely wasn’t an organic occurrence, but the result of a concerted effort by advertising industry groups that set out to tar X as a purveyor of “illegal or harmful content.” They assured brands that they were ruining their reputations by placing their ads next to such content.
Of course, it was a typical political trick, with notions of harm often flowing in one ideological direction. X claims this amounts to an illegal antitrust scheme that cost the platform billions of dollars since 2022.
Unilever is a major consumer goods conglomerate. It owns many household names like Dove soap, Hellman’s condiments and even the lefty ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s. Returning to X to advertise its hundreds of brands on the platform is a major win in the ongoing battle against these advertising groups.
We’ll see if X makes any meaningful changes to its free speech commitments as a result of the agreement, but color me doubtful. More likely, Unilever realized fighting off the suit while cutting its ads on one of the biggest social platforms in the world was not actually in its financial interests.
