Earlier this month, Apple and a number of other companies made the decision to pause advertising on X (formerly known as Twitter). Elon Musk has now directly responded to those companies with a vulgar message: “Go fu*k yourself.”
Apple’s decision came in response to Elon Musk’s antisemitic posts on the platform, as well as reporting that revealed Apple ads had been shown alongside far-right conspiracy theories and antisemitic content. In addition to Apple, companies including Disney, IBM, Comcast, Paramount, and others also paused advertising on X.
Musk’s comments today came during an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times DealBook Summit. Before Sorkin had even finished asking his question about the companies who paused advertising on X, Musk interjected:
I hope they stop. Don’t advertise. If someone’s going to try and blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money…go fu*k yourself.
Go fu*k yourself. Is that clear?
Disney CEO Bob Iger was in the crowd at DealBook, prompting Musk to follow up his comments by waving at Iger and cheerfully saying: “Hi, Bob!”
Elsewhere in the interview, Musk said that this advertising boycott will ultimately result in the death of X. “What this advertising boycott is going to do is kill X,” Musk said. “The whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail.”
A report on Tuesday revealed that over 100 brands have followed Apple’s lead and halted advertising on X. Internal metrics from the company estimate that this could ultimately result in over $75 million in lost revenue.
Apple has stayed quiet on the future of its plans for advertising on X. There’s no word on how long Apple’s Twitter advertising “pause” will last. Speaking during his own interview at DealBook today, Bob Iger doubled down on Disney’s decision to halt advertising on X.
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