Linda Yaccarino, CEO of Elon Musk’s X, has expressed her determination to lead a complete reset of the advertising industry in the wake of the company’s antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and its GARM censorship organization.
Axios reports that in an interview with Axios on Tuesday, Yaccarino emphasized the need for ecosystem-wide reform and a comprehensive reset of the advertising industry. Despite the recent shutdown of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), one of the defendants in the lawsuit, X remains committed to pursuing legal action against the WFA and other named defendants, including CVS Health and Orsted.
The lawsuit, filed by X, accuses the WFA and its initiative, GARM, of illegally conspiring to boycott the social media platform following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition in late 2022. According to X’s legal documents, the alleged “massive advertiser boycott” resulted in billions of dollars in lost revenue for the company.
Breitbart News editor in chief Alex Marlow recently explained to PragerU the threat WFA and its allies pose to the future of conservatives on the internet, and the organization attempts to use economic warfare to shut down dissent with leftist politics.
Yaccarino believes that GARM is merely a symptom of a larger problem plaguing the advertising ecosystem. “GARM was just a symptom, but [finding] the root cause of the entire ecosystem being broken, that’s what the suit is about,” she explained to Axios.
She added, “Once we find out everything that happened, why it happened, what influenced this activity, there needs to be ecosystem-wide reform and a complete reset for the entire industry.”
The X CEO further stated that the advertisers’ alleged actions constituted an “illegal coordination of efforts” targeting X and other conservative-leaning news and media companies. “We were victimized by a small group of people pushing their authority or ability to monopolize what gets monetized,” Yaccarino said.
The WFA, which controls approximately 90 percent of global marketing communications spending (roughly $900 billion per year), has yet to comment on the ongoing legal proceedings. Texas District Judge Reed O’Connor recently recused himself from the case after reports emerged that he owned stock in Tesla, another company helmed by Elon Musk.
Read more at Axios here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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