By Mike Scarcella

May 15 (Reuters) - Major companies that curtailed advertising on Elon Musk’s social media platform X over concerns about its ability to control harmful content have asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing them of boycotting the billionaire entrepreneur’s company.

The companies, including CVS, Colgate-Palmolive, Mars and Nestle, said in a filing in federal court in Texas on Wednesday that Musk’s X failed to show that they acted with any common plan, rather than making individual business decisions about when and where to spend ad dollars.

Corporate advertisers independently chose other platforms based on their concerns about X’s commitment to brand safety, after Musk bought the site in 2022 and fired employees they said helped to make it “welcoming to users and accommodating to family-friendly brands,” the companies said.

“X Corporation’s suit is 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,” the companies told the court.

The advertisers said “antitrust law protects competition; it does not protect X from competition.”

CVS declined to comment. Colgate-Palmolive, Mars and Nestle did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and neither did X.

X’s lawsuit, filed in August, said advertisers collectively withheld “billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from X, previously known as Twitter. It said the companies violated federal antitrust law by collectively agreeing to boycott spending ad dollars at X.

The complaint said the companies acted through the World Federation of Advertisers responsible media initiative that was launched in 2019 and meant to help the industry address harmful content appearing on digital media platforms.

The World Federation of Advertisers, also a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment. The group, in Wednesday’s court filing, denied any conspiracy against X.

Advertisers’ membership in the association is not enough to sustain a claim of an illegal boycott, the companies said. The majority of advertisers that participated in the federation’s initiative did not stop advertising on X, according to the companies’ filing.

Two companies, Twitch and Unilever, reached agreements with X in recent months and were dropped from the lawsuit.

The case is X Corp v World Federation of Advertisers et al, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, No. 7:24-cv-00114-B.

Read more:

Musk’s X reaches deal to drop Twitch from lawsuit over ad spending

Elon Musk's X drops Unilever from advertiser boycott lawsuit

Musk’s X accuses advertisers of boycotting platform in new lawsuit

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)