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Media Matters president Angelo Carusone and X owner Elon Musk.
The organization, which monitors far-right media, is navigating very troubled waters as the Trump administration and Elon Musk wage a legal war against it.
Media Matters for America, the liberal watchdog known for its relentless monitoring of right-wing media, is fighting for its survival amid a barrage of lawsuits from Elon Musk and an aggressive federal investigation under President Donald Trump.
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According to a July New York Times investigation, the group has spent over $15 million on legal fees in the past 20 months. It has laid off staff, lost major donors, and even considered shutting down. Internal talks to settle with Musk collapsed after his team demanded a full retraction, seizure of the group’s assets, and its dissolution.
The crisis began in November 2023, when Media Matters published research showing ads from Apple, IBM, and other brands appearing alongside neo-Nazi content on Musk’s platform X, formerly Twitter. The report contributed to a major advertiser exodus. Musk responded with lawsuits in multiple countries and promised to pursue not just the organization, but its funders.
Within days, Republican attorneys general in Texas and Missouri opened nearly identical investigations, later blocked by federal courts. But the most exhaustive attack came from Trump’s Federal Trade Commission, which in May issued civil investigative demands seeking years of Media Matters’ financial records, editorial methods, and internal communications.
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In a June lawsuit filed in the D.C. District Court, Media Matters alleged the FTC’s inquiry was unconstitutional and politically retaliatory. “The [civil investigative demands] constitute a fishing expedition into the most sensitive areas of Media Matters’ journalism and advocacy,” the group’s lawyers wrote.
Founded in 2003 by former conservative operative David Brock, Media Matters quickly became a mainstay in Democratic politics, shaping the party’s media strategy through fact-checking, advertiser pressure campaigns, and detailed tracking of disinformation in conservative outlets. Under its current president, Angelo Carusone, an out gay media strategist, the group expanded its focus to include digital hate speech and platform accountability.
Carusone called the onslaught a “revenge campaign” that he said was “intended to stymie or stop us entirely from exercising our constitutional rights.”
Related: New York Times fails to include trans voices in coverage, say GLAAD, Media Matters
The June Media Matters suit also documents threats and online harassment. On May 23, 2024, after a Media Matters staffer posted on X that she had been laid off “along with a dozen colleagues,” the far-right account Libs of TikTok reposted it. Musk replied, “Karma is real.”
The stakes extend beyond Media Matters. In recent months, major outlets, including ABC News and CBS, settled what many called frivolous and defendable lawsuits by donating to Trump’s presidential library, moves decried by press freedom advocates as capitulations.
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