The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sent Media Matters for America a letter demanding communications between the progressive media watchdog and advertising entities as the commission probes whether the watchdog colluded with advertisers to pull funding from Elon Musk’s X.
Media Matters was notified in a letter dated May 20 from the FTC that it is being investigated, a source familiar with the letter told CNN. The letter, which CNN has viewed, directs Media Matters to turn over all documents, materials and communications with a range of ad entities and related organizations — including the World Federation of Advertisers and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media — regarding brand safety and disinformation, the source said.
Media Matters is a media watchdog whose reporting tracks conservative and far-right news publications and personalities. The organization was sued by Musk in 2023 after it published a report detailing antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on the social media platform he owns, X. That lawsuit accuses the media watchdog of hatching a “media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.”
In keeping its request for assorted materials vague, the FTC is effectively throwing the kitchen sink at the wall to see what sticks, the source told CNN.
The move by the FTC sees the commission’s chair, Andrew Ferguson, make good on comments he made in December, mere days before Trump nominated him for the job.
“We must prosecute any unlawful collusion between online platforms, and confront advertiser boycotts which threaten competition among those platforms,” then-Commissioner Ferguson said about a different case…..