The company, known for its Cheerios and Lucky Charms cereals, confirmed Thursday that it will stop advertising on the platform. “We will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend,” spokeswoman Kelsey Roemhildt said. Last week, top US automaker General Motors Co temporarily halted paid advertising on Twitter amid chaos at the company. Volkswagen AG’s Audi also confirmed Thursday that it would stop advertising and “continue to assess the situation,” spokesman Whaewon Choi-Wiles said. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Pfizer had also suspended ad spending on Twitter. The pharmaceutical company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The growing exodus of advertisers comes amid concerns that Musk will crack down on misinformation and security protections on the platform. As civil rights groups question potential moderation issues, companies are considering whether staying on Twitter could tarnish their brands. Shortly before taking over the San Francisco company last week, Musk made a promise to advertisers that he would not allow Twitter to become a “free-for-all hell,” a sign that there would still be consequences for those who break its rules against of harassment. violence or elections and disinformation related to Covid. But since then, some users have posted racist slurs and re-circulated long-debunked conspiracy theories in an apparent attempt to see if the site’s policies still apply. The NAACP said this week that it expressed to Musk its concerns about “the dangerous, life-threatening hate and conspiracies that have proliferated on Twitter” under his watch. Other major Twitter advertisers, including Warner Discovery, Coca-Cola and Nestle, did not respond to requests for comment about their advertising plans. Some could evaluate their plans after Twitter’s new “content moderation board” meets. Musk said he won’t reset bills or make major content decisions before its meeting. No date has been announced for the meeting. Twitter will account for 0.9% of global digital ad spending in 2022, Insider Intelligence forecasts. Meta will account for 21.4% in 2022. Twitter lost most of its top executives last week, including the one in charge of ad sales. The social media company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sarah Personette, the site’s chief customer officer, tweeted earlier this week that she resigned Friday from Twitter, and her work access was officially terminated Monday night. Days earlier, he said he had a “great conversation” with Musk and expressed optimism about the company’s future. Announcing her resignation on Tuesday, she said she still believes Twitter’s new management understands the importance of upholding the “brand safety” standards she has tried to champion. The Associated Press contributed to this report
