Elon Musk’s wealth has soared in recent days to over $319 billion.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Several leading French media groups, including two publications owned by French billionaire Bernard Arnault, are suing social media platform X, accusing it of running their content without payment.

Newspapers including Arnault’s Les Echos and Le Parisien titles, along with Le Figaro, Le Monde, Courrier International, Huffington Post, and Le Nouvel Obs said in a statement on Tuesday that they were launching joint action against the social media company run by US billionaire Elon Musk.

The French media groups accuse the site formerly known as Twitter of violating so-called neighbouring rights, which under a European directive adopted into French law are due when social media platforms republish news content.

Arnault is the founder, chairman and CEO of luxury giant LVMH and one of the most influential figures in European business. He is Europe’s richest man, currently worth $164 billion, although his wealth has plummeted this year owing to a luxury industry slowdown. Arnault and his family hold massive sway in France, with stakes across luxury couture, real estate, entertainment, and more.

It’s a lawsuit that threatens to put Arnault on a legal collision course with X’s owner and the world’s richest man Elon Musk, whose $319 billion fortune has been soaring since the election of Donald Trump.

AFP last week sued X over the same issue and a court hearing has been set for May 15, 2025, according to the agency’s management.

The newspapers, as well as AFP, had already asked for an emergency injunction against X, which they accuse of not negotiating.

On May 24, a Paris tribunal agreed with the media companies, and gave X two months to provide commercial data that would allow them to assess the income it earns from their content.

The social media site “has not yet complied” with this decision, “demonstrating its continued intent to avoid its legal obligations”, the newspapers said, justifying their latest suit.

Last week, around 50 other mainly regional French media groups said they had filed legal action against Microsoft, another US digital giant.

They are claiming several million euros in a series of summons filed with Paris courts under the charge of “counterfeiting”.

The issue of neighbouring rights has poisoned relations between the French press and Internet companies for the past five years.

In 2021, agreements were signed with Meta, owner of Facebook, and in 2022 with Google. Some were framework agreements, and others individual arrangements.

But last March, matters again took a confrontational turn when the French Competition Authority fined Google 250 million euros ($265 million), accusing it of failing to meet some of its commitments made in 2022.