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After anti-Semitism scandal: X loses further advertising customers
Major advertising customers are turning their backs on Elon Musk’s online platform X. photo
© Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Pool/AP
Elon Musk has often attracted attention with his political views on the American right. Because of anti-Semitism and Nazi content on his Twitter successor X, the patience of major advertising customers is now breaking.
A double scandal about anti-Semitism and Nazi content Elon Musk’s Twitter successor X is driving more and more large advertising customers away. According to media reports, Apple, Disney, Paramount and the Warner Group, among others, stopped advertising on X.
The film studio Lionsgate also confirmed that ads on the platform had been suspended. The computer giant IBM had previously paused its advertising on X. According to the New York Times, the company wanted to spend a million dollars there this quarter.
The trigger for IBM’s decision was that the company’s advertisements were discovered on X alongside Nazi contributions and anti-Semitic statements. The organization Media Matters showed how advertising from IBM, Apple and the software company Oracle, among others, appeared on X alongside posts with positive statements about Adolf Hitler and the ideology of the National Socialists.
Sharp criticism from the White House
In addition, Musk caused a controversy with support for an anti-Semitic post, which earned him sharp criticism from the White House, among other things. The post on Musk wrote about the post on Wednesday that it contained the “actual truth.”
In later statements, Musk did not back down from his position, but only qualified it a little: He was referring to “some groups” such as the Jewish organization Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that “actually spread anti-white racism and anti-Asian racism.” . At the same time, he reiterated that, in his view, there was a problem with racism against whites.
On Friday, Musk continued to be defiant. “Many of the largest advertising customers are the biggest oppressors of your right to freedom of expression,” he wrote to his followers at Musk called Media Matters “pure evil.”
X’s economic situation is difficult
X’s economic situation is already difficult. Musk admitted several times that advertising revenue was only about half as high as it was during the Twitter era. He is trying to make more money through subscription offers. According to experts, this cannot yet come close to compensating for the loss of advertising revenue.
At the same time, Musk is – at least on paper – still the richest person in the world and, according to calculations by the financial service Bloomberg, currently has assets of around $219 billion. However, the vast majority of this consists of his holdings in the electric car manufacturer Tesla, which he leads, and his space company SpaceX.
For the $44 billion purchase of Twitter in October last year, Musk had to sell Tesla shares and also take out loans of around $13 billion. These loans now burden X and, according to media reports, servicing them costs around a billion dollars per year.