January 12, 2026 – Elon Musk’s social media platform X has taken legal action by filing a lawsuit in a Texas federal district court against 18 major music publishers and a leading U.S. music industry trade association. The platform accuses these entities of engaging in an anti – competitive conspiracy aimed at forcing X to pay inflated prices for music licensing.
According to the lawsuit, the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), along with Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Chappell, and other music publishers, have violated U.S. federal antitrust laws. They allegedly refused to engage in individual licensing negotiations with X, thus denying the platform the opportunity to secure rights to U.S. musical works on competitive terms.
The lawsuit states, “X has been deprived of the ability to obtain licenses for U.S. musical works from any music publisher on competitive terms.”
David Israelite, the president and CEO of the NMPA, issued a statement in response. He pointed out that X is the only major social media company that has not obtained proper licensing for the songs on its platform.
Israelite further commented, “We accuse X of copyright infringement over the years. This baseless lawsuit is a malicious attempt to divert attention from the fact that publishers and songwriters are legally exercising their rights to hold X accountable for its illegal use of their songs.”
