Major French Media Sue Elon Musk's X (Twitter) for Unauthorised Content Use

France's largest newspapers are suing social networking site X (Twitter), it was announced in a press release on Tuesday, 12 November. This joint lawsuit against the social network, owned by American billionaire Elon Musk, is being brought in a Paris court by ‘the publishers of Le Figaro, Les Echos, Le Parisien, Le Monde, Télérama, Courrier International, Le Huffington Post, Malesherbes Publications and Le Nouvel Obs’.

The newspapers claimed that they were due payment under their ancillary rights, where digital platforms are required to pay news outlets for distributing their content.

The newspapers claimed that unlike Alphabet Inc's Google and Meta Platforms Inc, platform X, formerly known as Twitter, never agreed to start negotiations with French news publishers, unlike Alphabet Inc.

They also said that X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, had failed to comply with a Paris court order issued in May to disclose information necessary to calculate the amount of the debt.

‘The income from these rights, together with the investments they will allow their beneficiaries to make, is a boost to pluralism, independence and quality of media, which are essential to freedom of expression and the right to information in our democratic society,’ the newspapers said in a statement.

A representative of the Paris Tribunal confirmed the case and said that the hearing was scheduled for 15 May 2025.

So far, X representatives have not responded to requests for comment.

As a reminder, Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter at the end of October 2022. According to many media outlets, this purchase was made ‘for the elections’ in the United States in order to influence voters. After the purchase, Musk said that the company was spending too much money on staff and began to lay off employees. On 4 November, Musk reduced the staff to 7,500 employees. The layoffs affected entire teams.

This year, Twitter has been hit with many lawsuits from media outlets, writers, artists, actors, and politicians over the theft and illegal use of their content by the social network. Musk has also been accused of promoting anti-Semitism and facilitating terrorism around the world through Twitter.

Later, Musk announced that he was introducing new rules for the social network and unfreezing some previously blocked accounts. And on 23 July, he announced the rebranding of the social network and a change of logo. The platform is now called X. However, the problems remain the same.

This year, it also became known that the social network X (Twitter), after being bought by Musk, has lost more than 75% of its value since then.