Your move, Linda. Elon Musk told “go fuck yourself” to advertisers who recently halted spending on X after he endorsed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on the platform.
On stage at the DealBook conference, X owner Andrew Ross Sorkin asked about these pauses in ads. “Don’t advertise,” Musk replied.
“You don’t want them to advertise?” Sorkin said.
“If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with ads, or blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself,” Musk said. “He goes. the curse. yourself. is this clear?”
He then waved to the crowd and said, “Hey, Bob,” referring to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was also present at the event.
Needless to say, this is not an encouraging message for advertisers who are deciding whether or not to continue giving the platform their ad dollars. This seems to conflict with the strategy of appointing a prominent figure in the advertising industry such as Linda Yaccarino to the position of CEO.
“What this advertising boycott will do is kill the company,” Musk continued. “The whole world will know that these advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail.”
Throughout his time as owner of Companies that have paused or pulled ads on X in the past few weeks include Apple, Comcast/NBCUniversal, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, IBM, Paramount Global, Lionsgate, and the European Commission.
In the post, which Musk described as “the actual truth,” one X user accused Jewish communities of spreading “dialectical hatred against white people.”
Musk has admitted that the “actual truth” comment was “foolish.” He even apologized and said he was sorry on stage. But Musk clearly has no regrets about spreading violent conspiracy theories. Just yesterday, he posted a meme endorsing Pizzagate, A.J I was exposed Conspiracy The theory that accused top Democrats of child sex trafficking and inspired real-world violence when a Pizzagate follower stormed a Washington, D.C., pizzeria with an AR-15. Musk has since deleted the post.
According to research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, X has failed to moderate hate speech on its platform that promotes anti-Semitic conspiracies, praises Hitler and dehumanizes Muslims and Palestinians. Media Matters for America, a left-leaning media watchdog organization, It also published a recent report It shows how ads from companies like Apple, IBM, Bravo, Oracle, and Xfinity appeared next to posts praising Nazi ideology. X said in a statement that the report “completely misrepresents the true user experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of expression and mislead advertisers.” X has since sued the media watchdog.