Meta removes Facebook ad criticizing Musk

Meta removed an advertisement earlier this month criticizing Elon Musk’s use of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to seize Americans' private information. "A single individual now controls sensitive U.S. data, risking our national security. Urge Congress to enforce strict oversight," read the rejected Facebook ad purchased by Ekō, a watchdog group that says it is committed to curbing corporate power. The ad linked to an online petition, which has received roughly 95,000 signatures, calling for "a massive public outcry demanding US lawmakers take action [against Musk and DOGE] before more damage is done."

On Meta’s ad library, the corporation claimed the Ekō ad violated its rules on "Unacceptable Business Practices." It’s unclear how the ad violated those practices, which prohibit advertisers from misleading "people into purchasing or sharing sensitive information," exaggerating "health-related benefits," and touting deceptive financial benefits.

Another section in Meta’s "Unacceptable Business Practices" states that advertisers cannot "Use the image of a famous person and misleading tactics in order to bait people into engaging with an ad." The Ekō ad does include a photo of Musk wearing a MAGA hat, but it does not feature his likeness in a manner designed to be misleading, as would be the case if an advertiser made use of a celebrity photo without their consent to sell a product. Meta also took down two other anti-Musk ads purchased by Ekō — one from last month and another from last week.

In response to an inquiry from Musk Watch, Meta said that the "ads were removed in error and have now been restored."

Ads that were supportive of Musk and Trump were not impacted by similar errors. The Trump Collection, a site that sells officially licensed Donald Trump-related merchandise, is currently running a Facebook ad that features a video of Musk wearing his trademark "dark MAGA" cap inside the Oval Office. There are also ads on Facebook promoting petitions that support Musk’s work at DOGE. "Sign our petition now to back Trump's new Elon Musk-led effort to dismantle the deep state, cut waste, and end far-left funding," reads a Facebook ad placed by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal organization. The organization has spent $175,000 running the ad on Facebook.

Musk has a combative history with Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Musk, who controls Tesla, SpaceX, and the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), challenged Zuckerberg to a "cage match" in 2023 but eventually backed out. The two tech billionaires began to have more cordial relations after Trump won the presidential election in November. In what some interpreted as an attempt to appease the Trump administration last month, Zuckerberg canceled Meta’s fact-checking program, which was heavily criticized by conservatives. He replaced it with the same user-led fact-checking system Musk implemented at X. "I'm not afraid to admit when someone does something that's better than us," Zuckerberg said of Musk’s "more effective" fact-checking approach.

The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also canceled at least one anti-Musk ad. The progressive advocacy group Common Cause, in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s lobbying arm, said the Post had agreed to run a "Fire Elon Musk" across the front of its Tuesday print edition. But the Post canceled the $115,000 ad, which featured the question, "Who’s running this country: Donald Trump or Elon Musk?" A spokesperson for Common Cause told the Hill that the Post would not explain why it chose not to run the ad. A spokesperson for the Post referred Musk Watch to the newspaper’s general guidelines for advertising, adding, "We do not comment on internal decisions related to specific advertising campaigns."