Elon Musk is one of the wealthiest men on the planet. He owns Tesla, Space X, and X (formerly Twitter). So when he says something, everyone listens.
After all, he has an entire social media platform under his thumb. However, recently, many people have disliked what he says.
Many of these people are advertisers pulling out of X now. However, Musk has an eyebrow-raising response for them.
On November 30, 2023, at The New York Times DealBook Summit interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Elon Musk was asked about companies pausing their advertisements on X due to his recent anti-semitic tweets. Musk responded, “If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f— yourself.”
Why Did Elon Musk Curse At X Advertisers?
When Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Elon Musk what he thought of the controversy generated due to his recent posts on X, he wouldn’t have expected the billionaire to drop an F-bomb.
But that’s precisely what happened.
Elon said at The New York Times DealBook Summit held on November 30, 2023:
“If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f— yourself, including Bob.”
The Bob he is referring to here is Disney CEO Bob Iger. When Sorkin tried to follow up, Elon doubled down and repeated, “Go f— yourself.”
This entire fiasco began when Twitter/ X user @CWBOCA posted:
“To the cowards hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and posting ‘Hitler was right’: You got something you want to say? Why don’t you say it to our faces…”
In response to Twitter/ X user @breakingbaht penned:
“Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing…”
Musk agreed and responded, “You have said the actual truth.”
Musk’s comment resulted in extreme backlash as he was perpetuating an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. It says that Jews want to reduce white populations by bringing large swaths of undocumented and illegal migrants into various Western countries.
What made the situation worse was that the entrepreneur went to Israel and spoke to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As a result, many high-profile companies have stopped advertising on X.
As per CNBC, companies like Apple, Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Paramount Global, Lions Gate Entertainment, and IBM, among others, have halted advertisements on the giant social media platform.
An IBM spokesperson said:
“IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination, and we have immediately suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.”
Bob Iger responded to Musk’s words during The New York Times DealBook Summit by saying:
“I have a lot of respect for Elon and what he’s accomplished. We felt the association with that position and Elon Musk and X was not necessarily a positive one for us and we decided we’d pull our advertising.”
During the interview with Sorkin, Elon admitted that tweeting something instigating and inflammatory was foolish. Musk said:
“Of all the posts I’ve done on the platform–there might be 30,000–once in a while, I might say something foolish. I’m sorry for that tweet or post; it was foolish of me.”
However, he also said that big companies withdrawing their ads would be why Twitter/ X dies. So, the platform’s death will be on their hands. Musk said:
“The whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail.”
The interviewer tried to push back and say that advertisers might retort that his actions caused the snowball effect of companies pulling their ads from the platform. But Musk remained resolute on his point.
He even disagreed and said, “Earth will be the judge.” Additionally, he said that the platform belongs to the people, and they will fight back against this. In response, some people have begun canceling their Disney+ subscriptions.
Will this lead to a sizeable decrease in the number of subscribers of the streaming service? Also, will all of Elon’s arguments change the minds of the advertisers?
Let us know your thoughts and opinions on this complicated matter.
Source: CNBC
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