A new report from the Financial Times says that X will now turn to small and medium-sized advertisers to raise revenue, after company owner Elon Musk alienated major brands leaving X over anti-Semitic content by telling them they could get fucked during a interview at the New York Times DealBook Summit earlier this week. But while the FT paints a picture of a bright future for X, where a focus on small and medium-sized businesses has always been the goal, Musk himself warned just days ago that losing major advertisers would mean the end of X.
Speaking at the event, Musk told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin “What this ad boycott is going to do is kill the company,” he said with a small nod to the audience. “And what the whole world will know is that these advertisers killed the company, and we’re going to document that in great detail.”
That’s a different story to the one that emerged today, where a company spokesperson told the FT that “SMEs are a very important driver that we’ve certainly underestimated for a long time” and that “this [was] always part of the plan — now we’re going even further with it.”
Of course, this could just be spin. In reality, X has no choice but to move on to SMB ad opportunities, as many of the big brands that have left X have no plans to return. According to his report The New York Times, half a dozen marketing agencies the paper spoke to said they would no longer advertise on X, and others said they had advised advertisers to stop posting on the platform as well. Some have even said that the temporary ad breaks on X will likely become permanent. The Times further noted that about 200 advertisers had stopped spending on the platform after Musk endorsed an anti-Semitic conspiracy with one of his impulsive responses to another X user. Brands including Apple, Disney, Comcast, IBM, Lionsgate , Warner Bros., Paramount and others, as now, WalmartTwitter’s former partner in e-commerce initiatives, have stopped advertising on the platform.
Although Musk has tried to clear up confusion about his comments in subsequent posts, and again during his interview with DealBook, it’s fair to say the damage has been done — and this time, it could last.
Sorkin, however, pushed back against Musk’s claims that people would see the end of X as the advertisersit’s his fault. He pressed Musk to reconsider that sentiment, noting that advertisers would likely blame Musk’s actions because he said “inappropriate things” on the platform, which made advertisers uncomfortable.
“Tell Earth,” Musk countered. “Let’s see how Earth responds to this. We’ll both make our cases and see what the outcome will be.”
However, there’s still a question about whether Musk would really let X fail, even if ad revenue dwindled to the point where X wasn’t viable as a business on its own. Like the world richer manSorkin pointed out that Musk has “enormous” resources to keep the company afloat if he chooses.
To this, Musk’s response indicated that he may allow X to die.
“I mean, if the company fails because of an advertiser boycott, it’s going to fail because of an advertiser boycott. And that will be what bankrupted the company — and everyone on Earth will know it… Then he’ll be gone. It will disappear because of an advertiser boycott,” he said.
When pressed again about the brand’s security issues, he added: “Tell that to the judge. The public is the judge.”
In other words, Musk was trying to flip the script and pressure advertisers to return to X or risk a boycott of their own.
But as the FT reports, X is already working on new sources of ad revenue, citing a previous relationship with marketing firm JumpCrew, to which it will outsource some ad sales, targeting small and medium-sized businesses. And the company told the FT that this push to reach out to SMEs would accelerate. The report also noted, like others, that X CEO Linda Yaccarino has been “bombarded with calls” urging her to step down to protect her reputation. But so far, Yaccarino is backing Musk after his comments, including an internal email, CNBC reported, where he noted “our principles have no honor, nor will they be compromised – ever. And no matter how hard they try, critics who don’t understand our mission won’t be swayed.”
