Trump Administration Launches Investigation Into Media Matters Amid Musk Lawsuits
AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
The Trump administration is investigating Media Matters amid Elon Musk’s ongoing lawsuits against the liberal website, The New York Times reported on Thursday.
“The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday opened an investigation into Media Matters, a liberal advocacy organization that has published research on hateful and antisemitic content on X, according to two people familiar with the investigation,” the Times reported.
Musk is suing the website for defamation in multiple venues, including Texas, Ireland, and Singapore. Media Matters has accused the billionaire of engaging in “a vendetta-driven campaign of libel tourism.”
The Times reported that the FTC sent a letter to Media Matters saying it launched a probe into the site as to whether it illegally colluded with advertisers on X, the social media platform Musk bought in 2023 when it was known as Twitter. Shortly after Musk acquired the platform, Media Matters published a report stating that ads for major advertisers such as Apple, Oracle, and Amazon had appeared next to anti-Semitic or white nationalist content on X. Lawyers for Musk’s platform argued that Media Matters manipulated an X feed to achieve those outcomes “as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform.”
Although the litigation is ongoing, the lawsuits have already proven costly for Media Matters, which last year laid off about a dozen staffers as it continued defending itself against the litigation brought by the wealthiest man in the world.
After his victory in November, President Donald Trump named Musk the head of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” which has since gutted a slew of federal agencies by laying off tens of thousands of workers and withholding congressionally appropriated funding. Musk was a fixture in Washington for the first few months of Trump’s term, but he has scaled back his presence in D.C. significantly after clashing with Trump’s cabinet secretaries.
