“Pretty soon the only advertiser left on Twitter will be My Pillow,” author Stephen King tweeted on Tuesday.
“Oh hi,” Twitter CEO Elon Musk replied.
While Musk may have just brushed off King’s flippant assertion with a series of sarcastic tweets, additional reporting may spell out a frightening future for the platform. On November 22, Sharon Kann, Angela Carusone and Ruby Seavey of Media Matters for America published a report with the following title: In less than a month, Elon Musk has driven away half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers. Furthermore, the trio of investigative journalists concludes that those 50 ex-Twitter advertisers have spent $750 million on ads this year and $2 billion since 2020. Making matters worse, there is allegedly another group of seven advertisers that is slowing down their spending on the platform. This smaller group of advertisers has reportedly brought the social media platform over $255 million since 2020 and nearly $118 million in 2022. Among those cutting back on their relationship with the social media platform are CNN, LinkedIn, Verizon and the Coca-Cola Company.
“Despite these advertising losses, Elon Musk (who acquired the platform in late October) has continued his rash of brand unsafe actions — including amplifying conspiracy theories, unilaterally reinstating banned accounts such as that of former President Donald Trump, courting and engaging with far-right accounts, and instituting a haphazard verification scheme that allowed extremists and scammers to purchase a blue check,” Sharon Kann, Angela Carusone and Ruby Seavey stated.
“This last move, in particular, opened the platform up to a variety of fraud and brand imitations.”
