The Media Matters vs. X lawsuit is a business tort case X Corp filed in November 2023 in Texas federal court, accusing Media Matters for America of business disparagement and tortious interference over a report that showed corporate ads running next to extremist content on the X platform. The case survived a motion to dismiss in August 2024, discovery is underway, and X Corp has expanded the fight into parallel lawsuits in Ireland and Singapore after a December 2025 Ninth Circuit ruling cleared it to do so.
What Media Matters Published
On November 16, 2023, Media Matters published a report by senior investigative reporter Eric Hananoki documenting ads from major brands appearing alongside posts promoting white nationalism, neo-Nazism, and antisemitism on X. The report named placements involving Apple, IBM, and Oracle, and a follow-up identified similar pairings for Amazon and NBCUniversal.1NPR. Musk’s X Sues Liberal Advocacy Group Media Matters
Advertisers pulled back quickly. IBM, NBCUniversal, Disney, and dozens of other companies paused spending on the platform. X Corp filed suit four days after the report went live.
The Three Claims X Corp Filed
X Corp sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, naming Media Matters, Hananoki, and (added by amended complaint in February 2024) Media Matters president and CEO Angelo Carusone.2Justia. X Corp v Media Matters, 5th Cir 2024 The complaint pleads three causes of action:
- Business disparagement, alleging the report contained false statements that misrepresented the platform’s safety environment to advertisers.
- Tortious interference with existing contracts, alleging Media Matters deliberately disrupted X’s advertiser relationships.
- Tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, alleging the report damaged X’s ability to attract future ad business.
The factual heart of the complaint is that Media Matters manufactured the ad pairings. According to X Corp, Media Matters created specialized accounts that followed only fringe extremist accounts and major corporate advertisers, then scrolled aggressively to produce juxtapositions the complaint calls “manufactured, inorganic and extraordinarily rare.”3CourtListener. X Corp v Media Matters for America Carusone, X alleges, then amplified the findings in media appearances as part of a pressure campaign against X’s advertisers.
What X Corp Has to Prove
Texas business disparagement has five elements. X Corp must show that Media Matters published false and disparaging information about its business, that the information was actually false, that publication was made with malice, that no legal privilege applied, and that X suffered concrete financial losses tied to the report. The damages element requires proof of “special damages,” meaning X must connect specific lost advertiser revenue to the publication rather than pointing to general business decline.
Malice is where the fight will get sharp. Texas business disparagement imposes a malice requirement similar to the “actual malice” standard the Supreme Court established for public-figure defamation in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan: the publisher either knew the statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Media Matters will defend its work as good-faith journalism and point out that the ad pairings it documented were real, whatever methodology surfaced them. X Corp has to show not merely that the report was misleading but that Media Matters knew it was misleading or did not care.
The interference claims run alongside. For interference with prospective business relationships under Texas law, X Corp must show that Media Matters’ conduct was “independently tortious or unlawful.” That requirement links the claims together: if the report is actionable disparagement, it can also supply the wrongful conduct the interference claim needs.
Why Media Matters Cannot Use Texas’s Anti-SLAPP Law
Media Matters calls the lawsuit a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, a SLAPP filed to bury a critic in legal costs rather than to win on the merits. Texas has an anti-SLAPP statute, the Texas Citizens Participation Act, designed to knock out cases like this early and shift fees to the plaintiff.
It doesn’t apply here. In Klocke v. Watson, the Fifth Circuit held that the Texas anti-SLAPP law does not apply in federal court diversity cases because its burden-shifting framework conflicts with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.4United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Klocke v Watson, No 17-11320 By filing in federal court in Texas, X Corp neutralized the most obvious procedural defense Media Matters would otherwise have used to end the case quickly. Circuits are split on whether state anti-SLAPP laws travel into federal court at all, and the Supreme Court has not resolved the conflict.
The Multi-Country Venue Fight
X Corp did not stop at Texas. The company also sued Media Matters in Ireland and Singapore, and reportedly considered a UK filing as well. Media Matters answered in March 2025 by suing X in federal court in San Francisco, pointing to a clause in X’s own Terms of Service requiring that “All disputes related to these Terms or the Services will be brought solely in the federal or state courts located in San Francisco County, California.”5United States District Court. Media Matters for America v X Corp – Complaint
In April 2025, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria issued a preliminary injunction ordering X not to pursue its Irish case or file a new one in the UK. In July 2025, Judge Chhabria rejected X’s motion to strike Media Matters’ claims under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, finding X’s international lawsuits were not protected activity.6Courthouse News Service. Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for Preliminary Injunction He declined to interfere with the Texas case.
The Ninth Circuit reversed the anti-suit injunction in December 2025. A three-judge panel found that Media Matters had waived its right to enforce the forum selection clause by actively litigating in Ireland for over a year without ever raising it, even though it knew about the clause from the start and cited X’s Terms of Service in its Irish filings for other purposes.7Justia. Media Matters for America v X Corp, 9th Cir 2025 X Corp is now free to press its international suits. Media Matters withdrew its California case.
The Donor Discovery Fight
In discovery, X Corp served sweeping requests demanding the identity, address, and donation amount of every Media Matters donor, plus all communications with donors or potential donors about X, Elon Musk, or the platform’s content moderation.2Justia. X Corp v Media Matters, 5th Cir 2024
The district court ordered Media Matters to comply. Media Matters appealed, arguing that compelled disclosure of its donors would violate the associational rights protected under NAACP v. Alabama. On October 20, 2024, the Fifth Circuit stayed the discovery order pending appeal, focusing less on the constitutional question than on proportionality: it doubted X Corp needed the identity of “every donor, big or small” or full residential addresses to advance its theories. The court acknowledged that narrower requests covering communications about X-related research could be appropriate, and Media Matters appeared to concede as much. The full appeal on the scope of permissible discovery is still pending.
Where the Case Stands
Judge Reed C. O’Connor denied Media Matters’ motion to dismiss in August 2024, ruling that X Corp had properly pleaded its claims and that the Texas court had personal jurisdiction and proper venue.3CourtListener. X Corp v Media Matters for America Surviving a motion to dismiss is a low bar. It means the complaint tells a plausible story, not that anything has been proven.
The case will turn on discovery. X Corp needs to establish that the report was false, not just methodologically aggressive, and that Media Matters knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Media Matters needs to defend its methodology and show that the ad pairings its researchers surfaced were real, however unusual the account configurations required to produce them. With the Ninth Circuit’s December 2025 ruling ending the California forum fight, the Texas case and the Irish and Singapore suits will each proceed in their own courts. No trial date has been publicly set in Texas.