Elon Musk's X
Corp. has tapped prominent litigator Paul D. Clement for its bid to revive an antitrust suit against the World Federation of Advertisers and major advertisers, according to papers filed Wednesday with
the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Clement, who served as U.S. Solicitor General during the George W. Bush administration and has argued more than 100 cases before the U.S.
Supreme Court, will act as lead counsel for X.
Clement, widely considered politically conservative, often represents clients with right-wing positions. For instance, he represented a
coalition of states that sued to invalidate a key part of the Affordable Care Act -- a case he ultimately lost at the Supreme Court.
But he has also represented groups in challenges to
Republican initiatives. For example, he represented NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association in their effort to strike down laws in Texas and Florida that restrict tech
companies' ability to moderate content. He also currently is representing law firms targeted by the
Trump administration.
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Clement is joining X's legal team around six weeks after U.S. District Court Judge Jane Boyle in the Northern District of Texas threw out the company's
"ad boycott" suit against the World Federation of Advertisers and others. She said in a 56-page ruling that X's allegations, even if proven true, wouldn't show that the defendants violated antitrust
law.
Last month, Musk initiated an appeal of Boyle's ruling to the 5th Circuit.
The legal battle dates to 2024, when the tech platform alleged that the
Belgian-based World Federation of Advertisers and its now defunct brand safety initiative, Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), sparked a “massive advertiser boycott” that cost
the company billions in ad revenue.
Musk also sued advertisers -- energy companies Ørsted (based in Denmark) and Shell; food giants Mars, Nestle and Tyson; healthcare
company CVS; pharmaceutical firm Abbott; toothpaste and personal care brand Colgate-Palmolive; toy maker Lego; and social platform Pinterest -- for allegedly conspiring with GARM to deprive X of ad
dollars.
Musk sued three weeks after the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee issued a report accusing GARM of colluding to cut ad revenue to X
after its October 2022 acquisition by Elon Musk.
X's complaint alleged that between November 2022 and December 2022, at least 18 GARM-members stopped advertising on Twitter,
and that “dozens” of other members “substantially reduced” their advertising.
The World Federation of Advertisers shuttered GARM in August, days after Musk filed suit. The trade organization has
repeatedly said GARM's brand safety standards were voluntary, and that members were free to accept or reject those standards.
When Boyle dismissed the lawsuit, she ruled that
the allegations in X's complaint, if proven true, wouldn't warrant the conclusion that the companies violated antitrust law.
"The conspiring advertisers here did not attempt to
force X to advertise with only GARM advertisers so that they could control the social media advertising market or any other market," she wrote. "They merely decided that they would not buy from X for
their own advertising needs, notwithstanding if X sold advertising space to anyone else."
The 5th Circuit hasn't yet set a schedule for the appeal.
