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Musk slaps companies pulling ads from X platform as form of blackmail: ‘Go f**k yourself’

November 30, 2023 | | Print Article

The world’s richest man has a message for those who are trying to “blackmail” him and the direction of X into submission: “Go f**k yourself.”

Earlier this month, Musk came under fire for responding to a post on X with what some interpreted to be an antisemitic statement. That, coupled with a recent report from liberal watchdog Media Matters claiming that ads from companies were showing up adjacent to posts from white supremacists and neo-Nazis on X, prompted major advertisers — including Apple, IBM, Lionsgate, Paramount Global, Sony, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Disney — to pull their ads from the platform.

Musk shot back at Media Matters with a 15-page lawsuit alleging that the group “knowingly and maliciously manufactured” the side-by-side images “depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform” next to “nationalist fringe content.”

Later, the billionaire announced that X Corp. will be donating “all revenue from advertising & subscriptions associated with the war in Gaza” to “hospitals in Israel and the Red Cross/Crescent in Gaza.”

And just days ago, Musk traveled to Tel Aviv to see the carnage caused by Hamas for himself, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and representatives of the families of hostages.

But his efforts have done little to assuage the advertisers on X, likely because their “outrage” has less to do with antisemitism and more to do with crushing free speech and keeping the global narratives intact.

Well, it appears Musk has had enough of being bullied.

Appearing at The New York Times’ DealBook summit — with Disney CEO Bob Iger and X CEO Linda Yaccarino in the audience — the entrepreneur addressed the advertising boycott and his November 15 post in which he agreed with a user who stated, “Jewish communities [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”

Fed up, Musk told host Ross Sorkin, “I hope they stop” advertising.

“Don’t advertise,” he stated.

A stunned Sorkin replied, “You don’t want them to advertise?”

“No,” Musk stated defiantly.

“If someone is going to try and blackmail me with advertising?” Musk said. “Blackmail me with money? Go f**k yourself.”

“But…” stammered Sorkin.

“Go. F**k. Yourself,” Musk repeated. “Is that clear? I hope it is.”

And then he spoke directly to Disney’s CEO, who had earlier explained his decision to yank the media giant’s ads from the platform.

“Hey Bob!” he smiled. “If you’re in the audience. That’s how I feel. Don’t advertise.”

(Video: YouTube)

Sorkin tried again.

“If you believe that this is the one part of your business where you will be beholden to those who have this view –”

“G. F. Y.,” Musk resolutely stated.

According to the Daily Mail, the internal X documents reveal that the revenue loss from big-name advertisers “could cost the company $75 million.”

Musk admitted the boycott could spell the end of his platform.

“What this advertising boycott is going to do is, it is going to kill the company,” he said. “And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company.”

The post that spawned the latest attacks against Musk and X — one in which he agreed with a user that “Jewish communities [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them” — essentially “handed a loaded gun to the people who hate me,” he said, adding that he had “no problem being hated.”

But on X, his “GFY” mentality is being hailed as an “epic” response to the strong-arming techniques of the global elite:

 

“The elite and western powers can’t control this man and hence can’t control the narrative,” wrote one user. “I say that was Epic.”

 

Melissa Fine
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