Today Coach explores whether Elon Musk’s successful efforts to pressure former advertisers into returning to X constitutes provable racketeering? He draws a vivid analogy involving high school sports and coercion to highlight the mechanics of influence and intimidation in corporate settings. The episode digs into the legal implications, personal anecdotes from Coach’s own litigation history, and the dangers of settling under pressure. He concludes by raising deeper concerns about how power is wielded in America — particularly when billionaires have ties to federal agencies, cloud contracts, and political influence — and encourages listeners and viewers to maintain clean hands!
🧠 What You’ll Learn:
Why Elon Musk is suing advertisers who left X — and what legal theory he’s using
The fine line between “hardball” business and criminal racketeering
Mark’s personal rule: Never settle — and why “clean hands” are your best defense
📝 Key Topics:
Musk, Twitter/X, and advertiser lawsuits
Antitrust vs. Racketeering
Why litigation is often about power, not justice
💥 Quotable Moments:
“What possible legal theory lets you sue someone for not spending money with you?”
“If your hands are clean, you can say: Bring it on, Asshole!”
“It’s not about the legal merits — it’s about relationships. It’s a small club, and you’re not in it.”
UNOFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT (The video only is authoritative)
Music & Opening Billboard
SHADOE STEVENS
From San Diego, California — Mark Whitney!!!
MARK WHITNEY
Ladies and gentlemen, from San Diego, California, Mark Whitney.
Thank you, Shadoe! Good morning, everybody. We're live. It is 9 a.m. in beautiful Del Mar, California — 64 degrees and cloudy outside. My name is Mark Whitney, and this is another episode of America's Coach. Americascoach.com. Coach@americascoach.com to reach out.
And I have done my homework this morning. I'm looking right now at a piece from today’s Wall Street Journal about an auto parts supplier who filed bankruptcy due to slumping demand for battery-powered cars — and also the tariffs. Slumping demand. Would you care to know the name of the CEO of this company?
David Slump. David Slump is his name.
But that's not why I called. I called today to talk about Uncle Elon — and whether Uncle Elon is actively engaged in racketeering.
Let me ask you a question. Here's the hypothetical: You're the athletic director of a major high school in a major city. You're the athletic director, and the father of your star quarterback owns a Burger King franchise. He owns a Burger King franchise, and he comes up to you after dark — after the Friday night game — as you're walking out of the locker room. You're the last one to leave. The parking lot is dark.
And this guy who owns the local Burger King franchise — let’s say he weighs 300 pounds and he's about six foot five — he comes up to you and he says:
"From now on, I want you to send your teams to Burger King instead of McDonald's. I want them to eat at my Burger King. I want them to stop eating at McDonald’s."
What would you do? I know what I would do. What would you do?
I'd tell him to go fuck himself. But that’s easy for me to say, because it’s just me. I don’t have any other relationships to worry about. And I have the added benefit of being an actual criminal. I have a 35-year-old felony conviction. And as a result of that, my hands are clean.
Look at these hands. My hands are so clean as a result of that experience 35 years ago with the Department of Justice — you can't lay a glove on me.
What if that same guy goes, "Well, I notice you have a lovely daughter — a 17-year-old daughter — and it just so happens I got my hands on some photos that could be... compromising. And it'd be a shame if those photos somehow, you know what I'm saying, made it onto the internet. So what do you think? Can we get those teams to eat at the Burger King? Can we just do that?"
At that point, I would have to think about it.
Because I have a rule. I have a rule for the last 35 years, and that is: never settle.
If you're involved in business in the United States at any kind of serious level, there’s going to be litigation. Maybe not actual litigation, but certainly the threats of it. I think in my business career, I've participated in over 30 lawsuits.
We were on the phone to the lawyers yesterday. One of my companies manages about half a billion dollars’ worth of residential real estate in coastal California. And we got a guy renting a place for $15,000 a month. It's the end of the lease. He’s getting belligerent. He’s gotta be dealt with. And it’s not going to be pretty.
That brings us to Elon Musk — and actually the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal.
So here’s what Elon Musk is doing.
Let me show you. I want to show you Camera Five. Look at Camera Five right here. Hey, how you doing? Right. There's Camera Five. Check out Camera Six. We love Camera Six. Look at Camera Six — see, I can show you the actual article: X Turns Up Pressure on Advertisers.
Now, how does the Wall Street Journal make their money? Subscriptions and advertising. So they know advertising.
As luck would have it, when I was 21 years old, I started an advertising agency. So not only am I a criminal, but I owned an advertising agency for six years. It was pretty successful. Produced radio and TV ads. I understand how all that works.
One of the things I never did was threaten to sue my clients if they didn't do business with me. And that is what Elon Musk is doing. Elon Musk is suing former advertisers at X to get them to advertise on X.
How does that even work? Let’s talk about it.
Let me tell you the companies listed in this article: Dove Soap, Legos, Ralph Lauren, Unilever, Verizon, Amazon Web Services — and a bunch of advertising conglomerates. Oh, and Twitch Interactive, also owned by Amazon. But here’s the list. You can see it.
This looks like a shakedown. That’s what it looks like to me. That’s my opinion. It looks like a shakedown.
And the Wall Street Journal — they’re not coming right out and saying it’s a shakedown — but it sure does read like one.
Here’s what some commenters said when they found out Elon Musk was suing his advertisers to get them to buy advertising from him:
“Let me get this straight: You must advertise with me or I sue you. And remember, I’m close to the current administration…”
Another guy:
“I signed up on Twitter to follow stand-up comedians. This was replaced with far-right politicians, who I had to block one by one. I was finding their content offensive. No one likes to be manipulated like this.”
— Jeff Barge
Ed Ryan said:
“Musk is playing hardball. He’s been on the receiving end of a lot of that. Musk critics in this comment section act naive about this history. The left loves to play hardball, but gets scared when someone throws one high and inside back at them.”
And Scott Hughes writes:
“The idea of suing someone for not spending money with you is so profoundly un-American that I can't even wrap my head around how anyone could find this acceptable or agree to be extorted in such a manner. Just like the spineless law firms that failed to fight back at the illegal executive orders and are now losing business, I hope that any business that caves to these scoundrels receives the public humiliation and loss of revenue that they deserve.”
Those are some pretty good comments. Smart comments.
What possible legal theory could Elon Musk have for suing his advertisers to get them to advertise on X?
Suing them if they don’t advertise? “I’m going to drag you through the judicial process for years”?
The richest guy in the world gave $300 million to the current president of the United States.
So the legal theory is that by not advertising on X, these advertisers are depriving consumers of choices. The allegation is that these advertisers have somehow colluded to avoid advertising on X. That is the allegation.
Now, as I mentioned at the outset of today’s show, I’ve been sued many times — mostly associated with the complete meltdown of a business. The Ben & Jerry’s franchises I owned in my 20s. I had no business being in the restaurant business. It’s the only business I lost — the one financed by debt. Everything else has been great. So I don’t do debt anymore.
I said my hands are clean. And the way I conduct myself in business now — I conduct myself as if everything I did and everything I do is going to be reviewed by a court.
That’s the value-add that my current company brings to these millionaires in Southern California. We are a compliance company. It says “property management,” but a residential lease for one of these homes in California, in order to comply with all the laws and regulations, is nearly 100 pages long.
That situation I mentioned earlier — that might involve legal action — that home is owned by a married couple. Both are lawyers. One was a federal prosecutor, the other a corporate counsel. And they're lost in the wilderness. They have no idea how to handle the situation. These things are very specialized.
Let’s get back to the athletic director scenario.
How is it not an abuse of the judicial process?
When I started my company, LawNet, in 2000, within a couple of years, one of my big multinational competitors — Reed Elsevier, which owns LexisNexis — sued my company. They claimed that I stole a database of their lawyers. But I was a customer. I paid $1,200 to subscribe to their database. They didn’t know that. So we let them spend money on lawyers for three years before we told them.
But I believe to this day the reason they sued my company was to abuse judicial process so they could get inside my books — to see if my company posed a legitimate threat. Because, in my opinion, they have a history of doing that.
Abusing judicial process is a huge part of how the world works — and always has been. It’s always been very tough.
All you have to do is come up with a colorable basis. Just a “good faith” — not even good faith — just a straight face. If you can find a lawyer who will keep a straight face in court and say:
“Yes, Your Honor, these people colluded to avoid contracts with X, and now they’re not advertising, and the poor consumer doesn’t know where to get the best price on Legos or Dove soap...”
That’s a bullshit theory — in my opinion, and in the opinion of Wall Street Journal readers.
This article seems to have unified the comments section — which is not easy to do these days.
Sam Weinstein, an antitrust law professor at Cardozo Law School, says it would be an antitrust violation if the advertisers got together and said, “Let’s boycott X to get lower ad rates.” That would be collusion.
But if the advertisers were motivated by a desire not to be associated with the kind of speech X was allowing, he said that’s unlikely to be an antitrust violation.
And he says that like a law professor: “Unlikely.” He doesn’t say, “This is bullshit.”
So here’s my question: How is this not racketeering?
How is this not racketeering on the part of Uncle Elon?
It’s a question. A fair question.
Let me tell you about racketeering. I spent 700 days in five federal prisons in four states. How was your 1992? Yeah — mine sucked.
Let me tell you about racketeering. You can get three times the actual damages. You can get attorney’s fees. You can get injunctive relief.
“The defendant conducted or participated in the conduct of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity and caused injury to property…”
Business fraud schemes. Corrupt unions or corporations. Ponzi schemes. Predatory lending. Foreclosure fraud. Coordinated embezzlement or kickback schemes.
It’s very flexible. It covers a lot of activity.
As Dave Chappelle joked: “Sean Diddy Combs — Diddy or didn’t he?” Sean Diddy Combs is on trial for racketeering by himself. Some legal experts think he might win his appeal because of that. But that’s what the prosecutors are going with.
So let me line it up this way.
You’re Elon Musk. I’m going to try dramatizing this with Camera Six. Okay, I’m going to pop up Camera Six — there’s not going to be anything there — and I’m just going to slide something…
So let’s say you’re Jeff Bezos. You own Amazon Web Services. You have billions of dollars in government contracts.
I slide this across the table right here.
That’s a picture of Elon Musk with his little X-son. And do you recognize the young woman he’s standing with? That’s Kai Trump — Donald Trump Jr.’s daughter. President Trump’s granddaughter. She’s quite the thing on social media these days.
The highlighted portion here says, “Elon achieving uncle status. Uncle Elon.”
Yeah, just slide that across the table.
We’re back.
Now, why would that be effective to slide across the table to Jeff Bezos?
Because AWS — Amazon Web Services — makes billions. They got a $10 billion cloud deal with the NSA called “Wild and Stormy.” A $9 billion joint warfighting cloud deal — JWCC — with Microsoft, Google, Oracle.
We’re up to $19 billion. Then there’s a $600 million CIA contract. That’s $20 billion — and that’s just what I could find with a few minutes of research.
And Elon Musk gave $300 million to the president.
So if you’re Amazon? Before Musk bought X, Amazon spent $100 million a year with Twitter. Then they stopped. Now they’re back up to $10 million a year.
So it looks like a shakedown to me. Looks like racketeering to me.
“Hey, how you doin’? Be a shame if something happened…”
You got this 300-pound gorilla behind you, like:
“Hey boss, should I take out the wife too?”
That was actually a scene in The Sopranos. I keep this in case we have to do collections.
So here’s another reality for these companies: What if their hands aren’t so clean?
I learned my lesson at a young age. My hands are clean. My sons’ hands are clean. We are obsessive about following the law — down to the penny. Everything is done legit.
If anything, we’d overpay taxes.
So if someone comes after me, I’m like: Bring it on, asshole. Let’s go.
And if someone sued me to get me to advertise with them? I would countersue the next day for racketeering in federal court.
But again — my hands are clean. I can withstand litigation. Sit me down in a deposition. I’m like, “Let’s go.”
But what if Jeff Bezos’s hands aren’t so clean?
What if Dove Soap’s board of directors has people tied to the big law firms that settled with the Trump administration?
What if those board members have kids engaged in… activities that could go down the tubes if they don’t play along?
You see — it’s not about the merits of the case.
It’s about relationships.
It’s a small club. And you’re not in it.
And I guarantee you, unless you’ve been through the meat grinder of the Department of Justice, your hands are probably not clean enough to withstand litigation.
That Burger King setup? That was the payoff. Here we go — Camera Six — that’s more powerful than the $300 million Musk gave to the president.
Finally — where would these advertisers go?
Let’s say their hands are clean. Pristine. Where do they go?
They can’t go to the government.
And that’s revealed right here in the Wall Street Journal toward the end. Not exactly in those words — but it’s there.
Musk has a problem with Media Matters — and now the FTC is investigating Media Matters.
It’s one thing to deal with a private lawsuit. It’s another thing to be investigated by a federal agency. Their tentacles...
Even if your hands are clean, the headspace it takes… the time it takes from your business...
But I have a rule: Never settle.
That’s important. Because once you become known as a settler? You get more and more wolves at the door. It never ends.
At some level, you have to enjoy the fight.
You have to find the humor in it.
Because this is darkly hilarious. In a very dark way. I mean, it’s comical.
The message here? Do things right.
When someone comes after you, it’s easier to respond the right way: Tell them to get lost. Tell them to bring it on. Because you’ve prepared yourself. You understand the realities of the world. There’s always a bigger fish trying to take you down. Always.
It feels like Uncle Elon — it feels to me — is engaged in racketeering. And it is thuggish. It does seem like something that would go on in a dictatorship where the system is closed and run by a handful of people.
That’s how it feels. And that is different.
One quick anecdote.
Years ago, when President Obama bombed Libya without congressional authorization, I was the only citizen to file a lawsuit: Whitney vs. Obama. Look it up.
I don’t have a problem taking on a fight. That was a good fight. It wasn’t political — it was principled.
Congress needs to authorize the president before military action.
The suit was dismissed because the war ended before the case could be resolved. But it’s a published opinion. It’s online.
I wouldn’t do that with this administration.
I knew the Obama administration would follow the law. They weren’t going to retaliate against me unlawfully.
When I was in prison, I was the lead jailhouse lawyer. Helping real lawyers win. I was secure. I knew officials would honor the First Amendment.
This — is different.
And I would think twice before suing this administration under similar circumstances.
Because what I see is racketeering.
Literal criminal racketeering by the world’s richest guy.
That’s how it looks to me.
And as someone who participates fully in the private sector — 100% — it gives me pause.
Hands clean.
If you do things right, you’re more likely to get the result you want in all aspects of life.
That’s what I learned in my 20s from the federal criminal justice system.
Clean hands.
I’ve been an absolute fanatic about it since.
So that is my 30 minutes for today. The alarm went off. It’s been a half hour. It’s been a live show. It’s been great.
I can’t wait to get back here tomorrow at 9 o’clock.
My name is Mark Whitney. This is America’s Coach — your guiding hand for uncertain times.
And today was certainly one of those examples.
americascoach.com to reach out. coach@americascoach.com.
If you’re on Substack, you can direct message me. If you’re not on Substack, get on Substack.
That’s the best place to experience this show — which is getting better and better each day.
This is only show number 7, and we’ve already got three cameras going, visuals working, everything coming together.
We’re happy you were here. We’ll see you tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock from San Diego, California.
SHADOE STEVENS
Keep Banging!
Music & Closing Billboard
