Remember the huge fuss Republicans made over Joe Biden's alleged interference with social media platforms? Naturally they took it to court, where a Louisiana judge went stone nuts:
Mostly his opinion is a long, familiar conspiracy-esque recitation of right-wing hobbyhorses about efforts from public health officers to highlight COVID misinformation, with a bit of Hunter Biden and election integrity thrown in. The key question, apparently, is whether the federal government "significantly encouraged" social media companies to toe the government's lefty line or else, and Doughty has no doubts on this score.
There was never anything to this, which makes it ironic that at this moment Elon Musk really is intimidating an advertising agency to do business with X or else:
A lawyer at advertising conglomerate Interpublic Group fielded a phone call in December from a lawyer at X. The message was clear, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation: Get your clients to spend more on Elon Musk’s social-media platform, or else.
....Interpublic leaders interpreted the communications from X as reminders that the recently announced $13 billion deal to merge Interpublic with rival Omnicom Group could be torpedoed, or at least slowed down, by the Trump administration.
....The push for agency agreements follows a flurry of brands returning to spending on X, including Amazon...Apple...and telecom company Verizon.
....“We now see brands returning in quite significant numbers, because the easiest route is to just spend a minimum viable amount on the platform,” said Ebiquity’s Schreurs. “Not because they want to advertise there and run their ads adjacent to the content on X, but because they are afraid of legal and political ramifications of not doing so.”
For some reason, the judge in this case—Northern District of Texas, natch—seems surprisingly sympathetic toward Musk. Golly, I wonder why?
Unreal. He's making out pretty good on his investment in Trumps reelection. Unfortunately it's by shaking down advertisers. I wonder how twisted the logic is going to be to explain this away.
It's tribute and bribery to the Emperor's right hand man.
That's it pure and simple, this advertising won't help these brands one iota.
I was looking for the name "Reed O'Connor". I didn't find it, but if it's him I wouldn't be surprised - he quite literally has a conflict of interest by owning a bunch of Tesla shares.
In any case, reporters should get Trump's lickspittle press secretary on camera with questions about this, asking why Elon is not recusing himself from a conflict of interest.
Watch how the tendrils of corruption spread! Once you are on this path there is no turning back.
The looting will be epic. Folks can tell themselves it's ok to use the xhitter because blah fucking blah. That's why they will spend a few bucks to bother you with an ad you don't want to see. It's easier than walking away.
It's not like you have to actively resist... just do nothing. And it's still too much to bear.
All the active accounts on Birdsite are enabling Musk. As a consumer, you can make better choices than to stick with a whiny, privileged, insecure White South African man-boy with a tiny dick purportedly disfigured by a botched penile enlargement. He's using your data to train his AI so that he can later on charge you for the privilege of using it.
+100
OK, so they have to pay to play. That's the world Tusk and Mump have set up. So why don't they just buy the minimum necessary ad buy and run a blank screen, or fake ads for products that don't exist, or something similar? Make them "coming soon" and even better, make them about things that would piss off Musk.
This is no different than selling MPG credits.
/s
Oh well, the corporate and Wall Street masters of the universe got the candidate and party they wanted into the White House and Congress. Now they can enjoy being shaken down by Trump, Musk and the rest for at least the next 4 years, with retirement plans involving peering out of high windows if the tax and regulation cuts they wanted fail to keep their mouths shut about their discontent.
Without bad faith…..
Republicans would have no arguments at all…
Seems Elon is dragging all of his business, and children and their mothers to Texas. They can have him. Thank heavens.
Extortion is a MAGA tradition. Mango Mussolini may have began with the attempted extortion of Ukraine in 2019 and now repeated in the 2025 shakedown (part of his appeasement of Russia agenda), and continued with financial settlements of bullshit lawsuits against Disney, Meta, Twitter, etc. in order to keep the FCC/FTC off their backs and have a seat at "His Majesty's" table. Paramount/CBS is next for its "60 Minutes" Harris interview.
Don't see any reason why the High Chancellor Heinrich Musk can't do the same.
Extortion is now the official policy of the United States
Still amazed that anyone stayed on Twitter after Musk bought it. I am ashamed that I stayed almost 2 weeks before torching my own account. It was "Hey, everyone: Let's all cede our enormous economic power to crush this racist Boer! Unilateral surrender out of laziness - that's our brand!"
Liberals and progressives are fond of torching the Democratic leadership for being too fond of their comforts to act, but maybe the leadership sees the behavior of their constituents and gets the notion that they aren't too fond of collective action or sacrifice themselves.
Musk wins this one...
...because I'm not picking the side with "Omnicom" on it. Everybody knows that's what supervillains name their corporations.
Thanks for telling us about this. I didn't notice it elsewhere. Just another reason I am so glad to see you active! Here's hoping for a full recovery.
I am gladdened that Kevin is posting again. I am deeply saddened that there is so much for him to be incensed at and post about.
A real constitutional republic would see this as a clear abuse of powers, but I'm afraid that we no longer live in such a place.
I wish some of these companies had the stones to tell them to fuck right on off. Money talks and cowardice walks to the bank?