Elon Musk Gets Shredded by Twitterers After Complaining About Declining Ad Revenue
19:16 GMT 04.11.2022 (Updated: 12:57 GMT 14.04.2023)
© AP Photo / Jae C. Hong
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When billionaire industrialist Elon Musk moved to buy Twitter, he promised sweeping changes to the platform, including cutting down on content controls designed to limit the spread of speech that encourages violence and bigotry, as well as disinformation and misinformation.
It’s been a tumultuous week since Musk took over control of Twitter on October 28 and pronounced himself “Chief Twit.” He’s fired huge numbers of staff, announced a new fee system for account verification, and seems likely to abolish permanent bans against figures like former US President Donald Trump.
All the changes have riled up one of Twitter’s primary revenue streams - corporate advertisers - who have begun putting their paid advertisements on the platform on pause. Among the brands halting their ads are Audi, Volkswagen, General Mills, and Pfizer, and major advertising companies like Publicis Groupe and WPP have scheduled special meetings with the new “Chief Twit” to sort out their concerns.
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk tweeted on Friday.
“Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022
Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.
However, Twitter users were having none of it, and they seized on the exasperation of the world’s richest man to carry out some expert-level dunking.
“‘Due to activist groups pressuring advertisers’ is an interesting way to say companies don’t want to be associated with a platform that is quickly devolving into 4chan,” quipped fiction author Frederick Joseph.
“Due to activist groups pressuring advertisers” is an interesting way to say companies don’t want to be associated with a platform that is quickly devolving into 4chan.
— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) November 4, 2022
Palestine solidarity activist Max Berger recalled that just days ago, Musk had tweeted a story by a conspiracy theory website that spread unfounded rumors that the assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), had been part of a homosexual love affair.
“Maybe advertisers just don’t want to be associated with a business run by a guy like that,” Berger noted.
Hey remember two days ago when you posted an conspiracy theory about how the guy who tried to murder the speaker of the house from an alien news website?
— Max Berger (@maxberger) November 4, 2022
Maybe advertisers just don’t want to be associated with a business run by a guy like that.
Others took the opportunity to jab at the billionaire for crying about his $44 billion triumph going down in flames.
— Nick Lai 🍥 (@azianperc) November 4, 2022
— Paris Marx (@parismarx) November 4, 2022
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) November 4, 2022
Musk's disdain for advertisers is already well-known, so it's unlikely the policy will change anytime soon.
