Is X going to be an ex-platform?
The world’s richest man has told advertisers on his social media platform to “go fuck” themselves. Elon Musk was addressing the crisis at X, formerly Twitter, where Apple, IBM, Disney and Coca-Cola have stopped buying space since the Media Matters watchdog pointed out earlier this month that their ads were running next to neo-Nazi content.
Musk didn’t help by retweeting an anti-semitic conspiracy theory for which he apologised at the NYT‘s dealbook event in New York last night. But moments later, asked to clarify what he meant by saying he no longer wanted these firms to advertise on X, he said: “If somebody’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself.” After a pause he repeated the invitation, slowly and to nervous laughter from a stunned audience.
Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter last year after having second thoughts about moving into social media and trying to back out of the deal, to which he was held by Twitter’s board in a costly legal fight.
The costs of X are only mounting for Musk. It’s saddled with $13 billion in debts from his purchase. The most recent advertiser boycotts alone could cost it $75 million. He says it could go out of business and his CEO, Linda Yaccarino, has been reduced to begging advertisers to come back to what she calls “a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street”. The trouble arises when others decide it feels more like a sewer.