According to an analysis from the Media Matters for America non-profit organization, 50 of the top 100 advertisers, accounting for $750 million in advertising this year, had paused or announced their intention to pause spending since Musk acquired Twitter, the newspaper said on Saturday.
The same 50 advertisers accounted for $317 million of Twitter’s $5 billion in revenues in 2021.
At the same time, the Omnicom Media Group and Interpublic have recommended that their clients pause spending on Twitter, while WPP’s GroupM raised their assessment of the risk of advertising on the platform to "high risk," sources told the newspaper.
The newspaper claims citing sources that following job cuts carried out by Musk, advertising agencies no longer have any point of contact within the Twitter ads business team and "have received little to no communication in recent weeks," including feedback on how previous campaigns have performed.
On October 28, Musk finalized the acquisition of Twitter, which cost him $44 billion. Following the takeover, Musk changed the company's day-to-day operations, including the termination of Twitter's executives, who were responsible for the platform's privacy and cybersecurity, as well as regular Twitter employees. The significant policy changes have caused a wave of concern.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing market research data, that more than one-third of Twitter's top 100 advertisers had stopped putting ads on the social media platform in the two weeks following Musk's takeover of the company.