Elon Musk has revealed that Twitter has seen a “massive drop” in revenue since he took over the platform. He claims that activists have been putting pressure on advertisers to pause their ads on the microblogging service. Elon didn’t state how much revenue the platform had lost, but companies that have paused ads include General Motors, Audi, General Mills, and IPG.
According to the new Twitter head, no changes have been made to content moderation, so this shouldn’t affect advertisers. He also claimed he did everything possible to “appease the activists” – before accusing them of “trying to destroy free speech in America.”
Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022
Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.
While the aforementioned companies have pulled their ads from the platform, it is by no means a permanent move. They claim that they just want to see how things evolve at Twitter now that the platform has a new leadership. If the platform gets a reputation as being toxic, then companies could worry about their brands appearing in ads there.
Most recently, Twitter has started laying off almost half of its staff, and those affected are hitting back by suing the company due to a lack of notice being given before they were fired. Some of those affected by the decision have moved over to the Fediverse – a federation of interoperable social networks. The decision to lay off so many employees is likely to only polarize people further.
Source: Elon Musk (Twitter) via CNBC
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