Hours before news broke Thursday that he had completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk penned an open letter to advertisers stressing that he doesn’t want the platform to become a “free-for-all.”
But that effort to appease the advertising industry, which makes up the vast majority of Twitter’s business, was quickly overshadowed by Musk’s early days as the platform’s new owner. Some industry experts are now predicting that the exit from advertisers could come sooner than expected.
Within the first 24 hours of his ownership, there were several reports that racist comments, hate speech and other objectionable content had significantly increased on Twitter as users tested Musk’s promise to allow “free expression” on the platform. Then, over the weekend, Musk was widely criticized for tweeting (then deleting without explanation) a link to a fringe conspiracy theory about the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“I think advertisers are getting ready to go,” said Claire Atkin, co-founder of adtech watchdog Check My Ads. “It’s quite possibly a seismic shift for marketers and advertisers.”
After months of uncertainty surrounding Musk’s pending acquisition, advertisers must now face questions about how Musk will change the platform, which is already a fixture in the digital ad space despite its massive political influence. Musk, known as both an innovative entrepreneur and a volatile figure, has promised to review Twitter’s content moderation policies and reverse permanent bans on controversial figures, including former President Donald Trump.
Brands have long been sensitive to the types of content their ads are served, an issue made more complex by social media. Most marketers think that their ads will run alongside toxic content such as hate speech, pornography or misinformation. And if Twitter continues to struggle with a rise in such content — or if Musk updates Twitter’s policies to expressly allow some of it — companies may stop advertising there for fear of risks to their brands or because they reach smaller audience if they are regular users also leave.
“If you think about the money and the investment and the care, the real care and attention that goes into connecting with consumers and then putting your ad out there next to lies…it goes against everything a brand wants to do,” Atkin said.
Musk, who has previously tweeted “I hate advertising” and said he wants to make the platform less dependent on it, also faces the reality that roughly 90% of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising. In addition to the open letter to advertisers, Musk’s team spent Monday “meeting with the marketing and advertising community” in New York, according to Jason Kalakanis, a member of Musk’s inner circle.
In public and private conversations with advertisers, Twitter has also emphasized that its content policies have not changed since the acquisition, and Musk has said they won’t until a new content oversight board is appointed (apparently to replace its existing Trust and Safety company board).
General Motors ( GM ), which rivals Musk’s Tesla ( TSLA ), said Friday it will stop paying for ads on Twitter while it evaluates the “new direction of Twitter.” CNN on Monday reached out to more than a dozen other brands that advertise on Twitter, most of which did not respond. Toyota ( TM ), another Tesla ( TSLA ) competitor, told CNN it was “in discussions with key stakeholders and monitoring the situation” on Twitter. Ben & Jerry’s said it “has not considered taking any action at this time.”
On Monday, advertising giant Interpublic Group advised clients to pause advertising on Twitter for the next week as it awaits more clarity on the platform’s plans for trust and security and its ability to deliver on those plans under new owner Elon Musk, a person familiar with the situation told CNN. The guidance was sent via an internal memo to IPG employees who work with clients in Mediabrands’ ad buying division, which include major consumer brands such as Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Spotify, Unilever and others.
Also on Monday, the Global Alliance of Responsible Media, a leading consortium of advertisers and platforms including Twitter, published an open letter to Musk, encouraging him to ensure that Twitter continues to align with the group’s standards, which define rhetoric hatred, violence, harassment and insensitive treatment of the discussed social issues as “not suitable for any advertising support”. Responding to the letter, Musk said in a tweet, “Twitter’s commitment to brand safety remains unchanged,” and Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette added that the company takes brand safety seriously and its partnership with organization. (Personette tweeted Tuesday that she resigned from the company last week.)
Also Monday, Angelo Carusone, CEO of media watchdog Media Matters for America, tweeted that he called on Twitter’s big advertisers to “put pressure on Twitter right now” to better address the rise of hate and other toxic content. On Tuesday, a group of more than 40 civil society organizations, including Media Matters, the NAACP, GLAAD and the Center to Fight Digital Hate, sent an open letter to Twitter’s top advertisers calling on them to stop advertising on platform if Musk stalls on content control.
“Advertisers are very sensitive to the changing landscape of social media,” Atkin said, adding that the question for Twitter now is “whether Elon Musk can continue to broker trust with advertisers or whether he’s going to continue to sow the uncertainty and fear”.
In response to a request for comment for this story, a Twitter spokesperson noted to CNN the previous tweets from Musk and Personette and Musk’s letter to advertisers, as well as a tweet from Twitter’s head of security and integrity, Yoel Roth, noting that the platform’s policies had changed, though it was experiencing an uptick in hateful content from mostly non-human accounts.
In a separate tweet thread on Monday, Roth said the company as of Saturday had “focused on addressing the increase in hateful behavior on Twitter.” He added: “We’ve made measurable progress, removing more than 1,500 accounts and reducing impressions of this content to almost zero.”
An advertising executive told CNN on Monday that dozens of clients had contacted them in recent days for guidance on the situation.
“It seems like a reasonable time for advertisers to rethink things,” said David Karpf, an associate professor at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. “I think advertisers are going to look at this and say, is the weak Twitter ad product becoming a better or worse investment? And it’s going to be the same or a little worse… advertisers are certainly not going to start spending more on Twitter anytime soon.”
There’s precedent for advertisers walking away from platforms because of hateful content. In 2020, dozens of brands publicly signed the #StopHateForProfit advertiser boycott of Facebook, which denounced the platform for its “repeated failure to effectively address the massive spread of hate on its platforms.”
But when it comes to Twitter, brands may have to tread carefully to avoid backlash. After GM announced the halt to advertising on Twitter, some users of the platform, including some right-leaning political figures, called for a boycott of the automaker.
Because Musk has positioned himself as a maximalist of “free speech” and with strong support among many conservative politicians, brands risk being framed as anti-free speech if they leave the platform. However, brands also risk being seen as tacitly endorsing hate speech and other harmful content if they remain, meaning many may decide to quietly stop advertising on the site without formal announcement.
“Advertisers have a hard time weighing publicly what is an unwinnable position,” the advertising executive told CNN.
