Elon Musk’s social media platform X, could lose up to $75 million in advertising revenue by the end of the year after the tech billionaire seemingly backed an antisemitic conspiracy in a comment thread on the site. The New York Times first reported that dozens of brands have opted to pause their marketing campaigns on the platform after reviewing internal documents from X. These documents showed that over 200 ad units from companies like Coca-Cola, Amazon, Microsoft and AirBnB have stopped or considered pausing their advertising on X, potentially resulting in a significant loss of revenue.
The documents were sourced from X’s sales team, and are used to track the impact from advertisers leaving the platform throughout November. X disputed the figure, saying that up to $11 million in ad revenue was at risk, but that that number was fluid because some advertisers returned to the platform and others cranked up their spending.
Brands have hesitated to stay on the platform following Mr. Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the company last year over concerns about his behavior and lapses in the moderation of potentially harmful content. Mr. Musk’s latest blunder came when he seemingly endorsed the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jewish people support the immigration of minorities to replace white people when he said “You have said the actual truth,” to the user.
