The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has informed the far-left advocacy group Media Matters that they are under investigation for illegally colluding with advertisers to damage Elon Musk’s company X.
In 2022, Musk inked a deal with Twitter that allowed him to purchase the social media company for $44 billion. Twitter had become a reliable left-wing ally, stifling conservative content while promoting left-wing causes. The sale to Musk, who promised to make Twitter a free-speech platform for all, angered the left.
Musk took the company private and rebranded it as “X.” Almost immediately, left-wing groups like Media Matters tried to damage the company.
Musk alleged in a lawsuit that Media Matters “completely misrepresented the real user experience” to mislead advertisers. According to Fox News, Media Matters “manipulated the algorithms that curate users’ feeds to get ‘racist, incendiary content’ to appear next to large advertisers’ paid posts.” Musk’s attorneys said the Media Matters report sent to X advertisers was “intentionally deceptive” and caused financial harm.
Musk’s suit against Media Matters is ongoing. The FTC’s investigation is an effort to rein in liberal advocacy groups that the agency claims have worked to deny conservatives’ free speech rights.
Andrew Ferguson, the Trump-appointed head of the FTC, said last month, “Drying up the advertising will dry up the idea. So, the risk of an advertiser boycott is a pretty serious risk to the free exchange of ideas,” he said.
Media Matters is accusing the FTC of intimidation. Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, told the New York Times, “Right-wing media figures holding key posts and abusing government power to target critics are two hallmarks of the Trump administration. Threats won’t work; our mission continues.”
Carusone is mounting the battlements and waving the bloody shirt to no avail. The advertisers they colluded with are almost certainly rushing to cooperate with the FTC’s investigation. As far as “abusing government power,” the FTC is well within its legal right to investigate collusion and fraud charges against Media Matters. Given David Brock and Media Matters’ history, there’s plenty of smoke to investigate already. Finding the fire shouldn’t be too difficult.
Media Matters was founded in 2004 as a liberal watchdog organization with a mission to discredit conservative media and identify misinformation. The organization has become a foundational part of the big-money infrastructure that supports the Democratic Party and its candidates.
The Media Matters founder, David Brock, a former right-wing journalist who switched sides and became close to the Clinton family, cultivated a group of Democratic megadonors. They have since contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to a network of groups that conduct opposition research, help Democratic candidates and work to undermine Republicans. Mr. Brock stepped down from the board chairman role at Media Matters in 2022.
Media Matters raised about $20 million in 2023, the most recent year for which its tax filings are publicly available.
David Brock is a curious study in political advocacy. First, he was a right-wing assassin, then a left-wing assassin. I doubt whether he has any strong beliefs. He certainly is without principles.
Of course, the left is going to complain about partisanship being the dominant reason for investigating Media Matters. But the owner of X, no matter who it is, has lost billions of dollars because the left doesn’t like the fact that the right has an equal voice on X. You can’t deliberately set out to destroy a company and not pay the price with regulators.
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