Five Democrat senators are calling on the Justice Department to investigate the social media platform X and billionaire owner Elon Musk over an alleged pressure campaign to bully advertisers into bringing their business back to X, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
In a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said that as a member of the Trump administration, Musk is subject to ethics and extortion rules, according to the Journal, citing a preview of the letter.
Musk "risks running afoul of criminal ethics laws" if he's using his position as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency to harm companies that won't do business with X, the letter read, according to the report.
The senators cited a Journal report from last month that said an X attorney pressured advertising firm Interpublic Group of Companies to increase its spending on X. Interpublic executives took that as a threat to their pending $13 billion merger with Omicom Group; their inference was that Musk could put his thumb on the scales of the Trump administration's approval of the merger, the Journal reported.
The Federal Trade Commission is in the early stages of reviewing the deal, according to the report.
In a separate letter, the same Democrat senators sent a letter to FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson and Omeed Assefi, who oversee the DOJ's antitrust division, on Wednesday urging them not to be swayed by Musk to block the merger, the Journal reported.
"The apparent attempt to strong-arm the federal government to advance his business dealings could violate federal ethics laws and, depending on the specific facts, the federal extortion statute," they wrote, according to the Journal.
Interpublic recently signed a new deal for potential client advertising on X, the Journal reported.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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