
During his speech at a conference on Wednesday night, Elon Musk expressed regret for a recent antisemitic post on X, but he also harshly criticized the advertisers who had since left the platform.
This month’s advertising exodus, which Musk compared to “blackmail,” threatened to force the closure of X, the former Twitter, as a result of the lack of ad revenue.
Musk addressed businesses that had taken down their ads from the social media site with an expletive.
Musk stated, “I don’t want them to advertise,” at the New York Times DealBook Summit. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising money, go f— yourself.”
“What the advertising boycott is going to do is it’s going to kill the company,” Musk stated. “We’ll provide comprehensive documentation and the entire world will be aware that those advertisers were the company’s demise. Watch to see how Earth reacts.”
An attempt to reach X for comment was met with no response at all.
Disney, the parent company of ABC News, Comcast, IBM, Warner Bros. Discovery, and others were among the companies that recently left X as advertisers.
Musk said, “Hey Bob, if that you’re in the audience, that’s how I feel,” in reference to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who had earlier in the day spoken at the conference.
Disney did not answer a request for comment right away.
During Musk’s speech, X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who was most recently NBCUniversal’s head of ad sales, was seated in the audience.
Musk apologized for a post he made on X earlier this month that was widely regarded as antisemitic before he criticized advertisers.
Musk apologized for that post. “I made a stupid mistake. It may be the worst and silliest post I’ve ever made out of the 30,000. I’ve also made every effort to make it clear in six different ways by Sunday, but I think it will be clear that I’m not antisemitic at all.”
According to a July post by Musk on X, advertising revenue has decreased by roughly 50% since he bought the business last year.
Earnings reports prior to the acquisition indicated that sales of advertising accounted for the great majority of the company’s revenue.