FTC probe is clearly connected to “Musk’s vindictive lawsuits,” group says.
Credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto
Media Matters for America sued the Federal Trade Commission yesterday, alleging that the FTC’s ongoing investigation into the group “has violated Media Matters’ First Amendment rights by retaliating against the organization for its reporting on Elon Musk and X.”
“The investigation is the latest effort by Elon Musk and his allies in the Trump administration to retaliate against Media Matters for its reporting on X, the social media site Musk controls, and it’s another example of the Trump administration weaponizing government authorities to target political opponents,” Media Matters said in a press release. The group said it has suffered financially because of “the cascade of litigation launched by Musk and his allies.”
The FTC’s investigative demand “makes no secret of its connection to Musk’s vindictive lawsuits,” and “probes Media Matters’ finances, editorial process, newsgathering activities, and affiliations with likeminded entities that monitor extremist content and other third parties,” Media Matters said in the lawsuit filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia.
Media Matters is a nonprofit journalism organization that has been targeted by Musk and Republicans for articles such as one showing that X placed advertisements next to pro-Nazi posts. Media Matters has faced probes from the Texas and Missouri attorneys general and a lawsuit filed by X. In the case involving Texas, a federal appeals court found in May that “Media Matters is the target of a government campaign of retaliation.”
Lawsuit: FTC “snoops into newsgathering activities”
The FTC sent a civil investigative demand (CID) on May 20, “apparently seeking to revive the state government investigations that had been blocked by this Court,” Media Matters said in its lawsuit yesterday. “The CID’s first substantive demand makes clear its connection to Musk’s lawsuits, seeking ‘all documents that Media Matters either produced or received in discovery in any litigation between Media Matters and X Corp. related to advertiser boycotts since 2023.'”
Media Matters said the FTC demanded “all documents and communications relating to 13 entities, most of which had previously been the subject of Musk’s public attention.” The investigative demand “is overbroad and designed to be maximally burdensome on Media Matters,” the lawsuit said.
The FTC demand “lists nearly twice as many topics as the Texas and Missouri demands and asks for documents and information for a time period three times as long (more than six years compared to less than two years in the state CIDs),” Media Matters said. The lawsuit continued:
The CID constitutes a fishing expedition into the most sensitive areas of Media Matters’ journalism and advocacy. It seeks to rifle through all of Media Matters’ “financial statements” and “financial report[s].” It probes the core of the editorial process, seeking “the methodology by which Media Matters evaluates or categorizes any news, media, sources, platforms, outlets, websites, or other content publisher entities.” It snoops into newsgathering activities, demanding “all communications” with third parties—such as members of the public—requesting that Media Matters label content for “hate speech” or “misinformation.” And it intrudes into Media Matters’ associations with others, seeking all communications with “any person connected to” groups that engage with these topics.
FTC chair targets advertising boycotts
Media Matters said it ramped up its reporting on Musk’s social network after he bought Twitter and “began laying off key executives and content moderators responsible for removing hate speech and other violent rhetoric,” eliminated policies that “served to protect users from misinformation and violent content,” and “reinstated suspended accounts of known white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, while suspending the accounts of journalists who tracked his private air travel.”
The lawsuit alleged that Media Matters’ free speech rights are being violated “as state governments and now a federal agency have employed sweeping governmental powers to attempt to silence and harass an organization for daring to speak the truth.” Media Matters said that under the First Amendment, it has “a privilege against disclosure of materials that would chill its constitutional rights.” The FTC also violated “basic statutory requirements” in US law because the investigative demand “fails to identify the relevant ‘conduct’ or the ‘alleged violation’ that the FTC is investigating,” the lawsuit said.
The FTC is led by Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who has argued that advertiser boycotts may violate antitrust law and pose “a pretty serious risk to the free exchange of ideas.” The FTC currently has only Republican commissioners because President Trump fired both Democrats, who sued Trump alleging that the firings violate federal law.
Media Matters said that claims of its involvement in an alleged advertiser boycott are baseless. “None of the Administration allies touting that theory—including Ferguson—has offered any credible basis for suspecting that Media Matters orchestrated an actionable conspiracy among competing advertisers in a cognizable market to refrain from purchasing advertisements on X or any other site favored by the Administration,” the lawsuit said.
Media Matters alleged that the civil investigative demand “constitutes a First Amendment retaliatory action in violation of Plaintiff’s rights under the First Amendment of the US Constitution” and asked the court to issue an injunction to block the investigation. Media Matters also alleged a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which provides protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The recent tension between Musk and Trump has not seemed to have any effect on the FTC investigation, Media Matters said. “That brief public feud between Musk and Trump took place after the FTC issued the CID, which the agency continues to pursue against Media Matters,” the lawsuit said.
We contacted the FTC today and will update this article if it provides a comment on the Media Matters lawsuit.
Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.
