Elon Musk has signalled the potential closure of the company which he paid $US44 billion ($66 billion) for, claiming at a New York Times summit that “what this advertising boycott is gonna do is it’s gonna kill the company”.
These claims come after Musk himself and X, formerly known as Twitter, came under fire over posts and claims made on the social media platform which even drew out words of condemnation from the White House, which said it was an “abhorrent promotion of anti-Semitic and racist hate”.
As a result of publicity around these issues on X, it’s been reported that more than 100 companies have paused any advertising activity on X, something that some have estimated could cost the business more than $100 million in revenue this year.
When asked about this at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Musk said simply: “I hope they stop. Don’t advertise.”
He paused, then went on to add: “If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f— yourself. Go f— yourself.
“Is that clear? I hope it is.”
Musk even turned to the audience, and said, “Hey Bob, if you’re in the audience…”, in reference to Disney CEO Bob Iger, head of one of the many companies which has withdrawn advertising on X.
But in the most clear statement by Musk of the impact of such a boycott, he went on to say that “what this advertising boycott is gonna do is it’s gonna kill the company”.
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Musk seemed at some peace with that.
“That is what everybody on Earth will know,” he said.
“We’ll be gone, and it’ll be gone because of an advertiser boycott.”
X has continued to see declines in usage by existing users, slowing in new-user sign ups and a slowing in monthly usage of the platform.
It’s also facing its first real opposition from Meta’s Threads, which mimics much of X’s original use cases.
