The joint statement confirmed that GARM will remain inactive as a result of WFA’s settlement with X. No other concessions were negotiated.
The rest of the statement claims the agreement “resets the relationship between the two organizations” and that it is now “fully aligned that brands, platforms and consumers will all benefit from brand safety innovation.”
In addition, the WFA said it aligns with X on its “commitment to free speech,” which appears to be a nod to controversial reports about X content that Musk said led to his “war” with advertisers. That’s what those reports found hateful content was rampant on the platform, X ad control was not working stop big brand ads from appearing next to posts promoting Hitler and the Nazi Party.
It’s not clear why the advertisers agreed, since the court ruled in March The ad boycott was perfectly legal and X’s antitrust claims collapsed without evidence of consumer harm. The following month, X appealed, but he appeared to be dragging his feet on filing his brief as an appellant, asking the court for an extension until August.
Perhaps settlement negotiations were already underway.
The settlement for Musk comes shortly after the launch of X Money, a payment product offered through the social media platform that he hopes will help X become less dependent on advertisers for revenue.
Whether X Money succeeds on the scale required to meaningfully compete with X’s advertising business will likely depend on whether X overcomes barriers to adoption. These include the possibility of this X Money transactions may be declined if an automated support error mistakenly terminates a user’s X account without warning. There’s also the simpler problem that X Money isn’t available in all 50 states.
