Musk went to “war,” sought jail time for X ad boycotts—but case ends with a whimper

马斯克曾宣称要“开战”并要求将抵制 X 广告的厂商送进监狱，但最终案件却草草收场

Elon Musk has settled his lawsuit with advertisers that he once claimed should be criminally prosecuted for refusing to advertise on his social media platform, X. In a joint statement that reveals little about the deal, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and X said that they were “putting the litigation involving the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) behind them.”

埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）已与广告商达成和解。他曾声称这些广告商因拒绝在他的社交媒体平台 X 上投放广告而应受到刑事起诉。世界广告主联合会（WFA）与 X 在一份几乎未透露任何交易细节的联合声明中表示，双方正在“结束涉及全球负责任媒体联盟（GARM）的诉讼”。

X sued the WFA in 2024, shortly after a series of brands boycotting X caused the platform’s revenue to drop by $1.5 billion by the end of 2023. Musk became upset, declaring “it is war” on X about eight months after he told advertisers who refused to buy X ads to “go fuck yourself.” According to Musk, he had “no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket,” who he tried to argue were violating antitrust laws by illegally conspiring to tank X revenue.

2024 年，在多家品牌抵制 X 导致该平台 2023 年底收入下降 15 亿美元后不久，X 对 WFA 提起了诉讼。马斯克对此感到愤怒，并在他告诉拒绝购买 X 广告的广告商“去死吧”大约八个月后，在 X 上宣称“这是战争”。马斯克声称，他“别无选择，只能起诉广告抵制敲诈勒索案中的肇事者和同谋者”，他试图辩称这些人通过非法串通来打压 X 的收入，从而违反了反垄断法。

A lot has changed since Musk filed the lawsuit. Most relevant to the lawsuit, GARM was quickly disbanded after Musk called out the small not-for-profit initiative for setting brand standards that X said led advertisers to steer clear of X. The point of the initiative was “to help the industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising,” a now-shuttered website said. But Musk claimed GARM was instead trying to monopolize which content gets monetized online, and the effort’s dissolution will remain his biggest win in the case.

自马斯克提起诉讼以来，情况发生了很大变化。与诉讼最相关的是，在马斯克指责 GARM 这个小型非营利组织制定的品牌标准导致广告商避开 X 之后，该组织很快解散了。该组织现已关闭的网站曾称，其宗旨是“帮助行业应对数字媒体平台上的非法或有害内容及其广告变现挑战”。但马斯克声称，GARM 实际上是试图垄断在线内容的变现渠道，而该组织的解散将是他在此案中取得的最大胜利。

The joint statement confirmed that GARM will remain inactive as a result of the WFA’s settlement with X. No other concessions were discussed. The rest of the statement claims that the settlement “resets the relationship between the two organizations,” which are now supposedly “fully aligned in the view that brands, platforms, and consumers will all benefit from brand-safety innovation.”

联合声明确认，由于 WFA 与 X 达成了和解，GARM 将保持停运状态。双方未讨论其他让步条件。声明其余部分称，此次和解“重置了两个组织之间的关系”，双方现在据称“完全一致地认为，品牌、平台和消费者都将从品牌安全创新中受益”。

Additionally, the WFA said it is aligned with X on “its commitment to freedom of speech,” which seems to be a nod to the controversial reports on X content that Musk said triggered his “war” with advertisers. Those reports found that as hateful content was increasing on the platform, X ad controls weren’t working to stop big brands’ ads from appearing next to posts touting Hitler and the Nazi Party.

此外，WFA 表示在“致力于言论自由”方面与 X 保持一致，这似乎是对有关 X 内容的争议性报道的呼应——马斯克曾称这些报道引发了他与广告商之间的“战争”。这些报道发现，随着平台上仇恨内容的增加，X 的广告控制措施未能阻止大品牌的广告出现在吹捧希特勒和纳粹党的帖子旁边。

It’s unclear why advertisers settled, since a court ruled in March that the ad boycott was perfectly legal and X’s antitrust claims fell apart without proof of consumer harm. The next month, X appealed, but it appeared to be dragging its feet in filing a brief as an appellant, asking the court for an extension until August. Perhaps settlement negotiations were already underway.

目前尚不清楚广告商为何选择和解，因为法院在 3 月份裁定抵制广告的行为完全合法，且 X 在没有消费者受损证据的情况下，其反垄断指控也站不住脚。次月，X 提起了上诉，但似乎在上诉状提交上拖拖拉拉，并请求法院将期限延长至 8 月。或许当时和解谈判已经在进行中。

For Musk, the settlement comes shortly after the launch of X Money, a payments product offered through his social media platform that he hopes will help X be less reliant on advertisers for revenue. Whether X Money can succeed at the scale required to meaningfully rival X’s advertising business will likely depend on X removing barriers to adoption. Those include the possibility that X Money transactions could be declined if an automated support error mistakenly suspends a user’s X account without warning. There’s also the simpler problem that X Money isn’t available in all 50 states.

对于马斯克来说，此次和解发生在他推出 X Money 不久之后。X Money 是通过其社交媒体平台提供的支付产品，他希望该产品能帮助 X 减少对广告商收入的依赖。X Money 能否达到足以与 X 的广告业务相抗衡的规模，可能取决于 X 能否消除采用该产品的障碍。这些障碍包括：如果自动支持系统错误地在没有警告的情况下暂停了用户的 X 账户，X Money 的交易可能会被拒绝。此外还有一个更简单的问题，即 X Money 并非在所有 50 个州都可用。