Otherwise, they were just using X in a strange manner, which is not defamatory in itself.
The wording in dispute appears to be:
> But that [the claim that "brands are now 'protected from the risk of being next to' potentially toxic content."] certainly isn’t the case for at least five major brands: We recently found ads for Apple, Bravo, Oracle, Xfinity, and IBM next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi Party on X. Here they are: <screenshots>
Nothing is said about how common/rare this occurrence is nor whether anything specific needs to be done to observe such a result.
It may hinge on exactly how strong the 'protection' is that Yaccarino alluded to is inferred to be - whether it's reasonable to infer she meant that content moderation under Musk was now perfected and 100% hateproof, at least with respect to ads.
> X contends no actual users were or ever would be in this same circumstance, so no brand damage was actually done.
If that's what they want to contend then this lawsuit is probably not the right vehicle. They'd probably be better off making that argument to their advertisers.
It may well be a weak case. MM are certainly slimy political operators, but they seem to have mostly avoided any direct statements which are easily, unambiguously provably false.
I'm honestly not sure how that would be legally analyzed. It doesn't really feel like a very convincing argument, but I don't think I can articulate exactly why.
In any case, it doesn't seem that particular line of argument is present in the complaint, so it's pretty much just a curiosity.
This is such a Musk thing. Even Musk from a long time ago.
Making exaggerations and big implications about his products is part of his DNA. Its a huge factor in his success.
For CMOs making major ad buys for carefully curated marquis brands like Apple, IBM, et al, I suspect that the only concrete number that they want to be assured of by their advertising platform is "0".
Too bad Elon fired Twitter/X's Trust and Safety team!
[0] https://nitter.net/elonmusk/status/1724908287471272299 . I'm including this link even though it's been referenced to death, because reading primary sources is important - especially with people people becoming desensitized to claims of racism from a media landscape that often takes things out of context and heavily paraphrases to blow them out of proportion, which is decidedly not what happened here.