(Reuters) -Elon&nbsp;Musk&nbsp;threatened on Saturday to sue&nbsp;media&nbsp;watchdog&nbsp;Media&nbsp;Matters and those who attacked his social&nbsp;media&nbsp;platform X, following moves by several large U.S. companies to halt advertising on the site after being promoted alongside antisemitic content.
Musk&nbsp;and X have been&nbsp;under&nbsp;a microscope all week for antisemitic and racist content that has proliferated on the site since he purchased it in 2022.
Liberal&nbsp;watchdog&nbsp;group&nbsp;Media&nbsp;Matters for America said earlier this week that it found ads from IBM, Apple and others were placed alongside content promoting Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Musk&nbsp;on Wednesday endorsed an antisemitic post on X that falsely claimed members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred&nbsp;against&nbsp;white people, drawing sharp condemnation, including from the White House.
"The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear&nbsp;lawsuit&nbsp;against&nbsp;Media&nbsp;Matters and all those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,"&nbsp;Musk&nbsp;wrote in a post on X, without naming any other parties.
Numerous companies suspended ads in the last two days, including IBM, Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and Comcast, Lions Gate Entertainment and Paramount Global. Axios reported that Apple, the world's largest company by market value, would do the same.
"This week&nbsp;Media&nbsp;Matters for America posted a story that completely misrepresented the real experience on X, in another attempt to&nbsp;undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers," a statement posted by&nbsp;Musk&nbsp;said. He accused&nbsp;Media&nbsp;Matters of creating an alternative account designed to "misinform advertisers" about their posts.
Media&nbsp;Matters on Saturday said&nbsp;Musk&nbsp;was a "bully" who&nbsp;threatens&nbsp;"meritless&nbsp;lawsuits".
"Musk&nbsp;admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified,"&nbsp;Media&nbsp;Matters President Angelo Carusone said in a statement.
"If he does sue us, we will win."
Musk&nbsp;has threatened legal action&nbsp;against&nbsp;other parties in the past, most specifically the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization that fights antisemitism, blaming it for X's loss of ad revenue. He has not yet sued the ADL, however.
Advertisers have fled the site since&nbsp;Musk&nbsp;bought it in October 2022 and reduced content moderation, resulting in a sharp rise in hate speech, according to civil rights groups.
The White House on Friday condemned&nbsp;Musk's endorsement of what it called a "hideous" antisemitic conspiracy theory, and accused&nbsp;Musk&nbsp;of an "abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate" that "runs&nbsp;against&nbsp;our core values as Americans".
Musk&nbsp;is also CEO of electric carmaker Tesla, which has been hit by several&nbsp;lawsuits that allege rampant racial or sexual harassment of workers.
Antisemitism has been on the rise in recent years in the United States and worldwide. Following the outbreak of war between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, antisemitic incidents in the United States rose by nearly 400% from the year-earlier period, the ADL said.
(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey and Jyoti Narayan in Bengaluru; Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Kirsten Donovan and Daniel Wallis)

you might like

Elon Musk, under fire, threatens lawsuit against media watchdog