A number of prominent advertisers have returned to Twitter/X, marking another brutal defeat for the censorious left.
These advertisers — including Comcast, IBM, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Lionsgate Entertainment — paused their advertising campaigns in November of 2023 after leftist censors made a fuss about their ads appearing next to allegedly “hateful” content.
“From January to September 2024, marketing intelligence platform MediaRadar found that these brands collectively spent less than $3.3 million on X,” according to AdWeek.
The $3.3 million in spending marked a whopping 98 percent drop from the $170 million that the brands spent on Twitter/X advertising in 2023.
BREAKING: Major advertisers are making their comeback to !
IBM, Disney, Comcast, Discovery, Warner Bros, and Lionsgate are coming back on the platform.
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) November 15, 2024
It’s believed the decision to resume advertising is based on Musk’s close ties to President-elect Donald Trump.
“X’s owner now has the ear of the president-elect, a man who has a long history of helping his friends, and punishing his enemies,” Max Willens, a senior analyst at Emarketer, told AdWeek. “Sending at least a trickle of ad spending toward X may be seen as good for business, albeit in an indirect way.”
FYI, Trump does in fact NOT have a history of punishing his enemies. Current President Joe Biden, on the other hand, does.
Elon Musk responds to political ‘weaponization’ of DOJ against SpaceX for not hiring refugees https://t.co/y1AZdnt6eY pic.twitter.com/dpw0283SYa
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) August 29, 2023
The Financial Times has also obtained confirmation that the return to X is linked to Musk’s ties to Trump.
“Lou Paskalis, chief executive of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory and a former media executive at Bank of America, said some marketers were likely to reallocate spending back to X as ‘political leverage,’ such as if they were seeking government contracts,” the paper reported.
“He added companies would seek to get in the ‘good graces of Elon,’ who has been given a wide remit by Trump as co-head of a new Department of Government Efficiency,” the reporting continued.
“It could be seen as an official channel for White House communications,” another advertising agency chief anonymously told the paper, adding that Trump’s landslide victory has granted Musk legitimacy and power.
“The high ground rarely kicks in if it’s an important channel,” Shira Jeczmien, the chief executive of Screenshot Media, likewise said.
How it started.
How’s it going.https://t.co/7AzRq3UE99 pic.twitter.com/DbmfrzPath
— ◢ J◎e McCann (@joemccann) November 15, 2024
Musk previously told disgruntled advertisers like Disney in particular to “go f–k yourself.”
He issued the attack on fleeing advertisers while speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit back in November of 2023.
During an interview, he was asked about all the advertisers who’d fled X in recent weeks over both his liking of an allegedly antisemitic tweet and also his refusal to censor the other allegedly “hateful” content that the left-wing censors had discovered.
“I hope they stop. Don’t advertise,” he responded, essentially endorsing the advertisers’ exit.
“You don’t want them to advertise?” the interviewer, Andrew Ross Sorkin, then asked.
“No. If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f–k yourself. Go. F–k. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob, I’m sure you’re in the audience,” Musk replied.
By Bob, he meant Disney CEO Bob Iger.
Musk slaps companies pulling ads from X platform as form of blackmail: ‘Go f**k yourself’ https://t.co/TiJX410zLa via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) November 30, 2023
Musk also previously predicted the advertiser boycott would end if and once Trump won the 2024 race.
“Some of the boycott is starting to lift, and I think if Trump wins, we’ll see most of the boycott lift,” he told famous podcaster Joe Rogan before Election Day. “But if Kamala wins, we’ll see that boycott get stronger, and they’ll shut down X.”
Listen:
Elon Musk: “Some of the boycott is starting to lift, and I think if Trump wins, we’ll see most of the boycott lift.
But if Kamala wins, we’ll see that boycott get stronger, and they’ll shut down X.”
— Valuetainment Media (@ValuetainmentTV) November 5, 2024
Trump’s opponent in the 2024 race, Vice President Kamala Harris, is a big-time leftist who echoed the rhetoric of the left’s many censors, attacking Twitter/X on numerous occasions.
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