Musk goes ballistic

After several major advertisers announced a pause to their advertising on X, amid concerns about anti-Semitic content on the platform, owner Elon Musk has threatened a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against non-profit organisation Media Matters and unnamed others. 

What’s happened

• Last week Musk tweeted agreement with an anti-Semitic post.
• Non-profit organisation Media Matters reported that ads for major brands had been placed next to posts defending and promoting Nazism. 
• IBM, Apple, Lionsgate Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, Paramount, and NBC Universal are among major advertisers that have said they will suspend ad buys on the platform.
• In a bad weekend for Musk, his Space X Starship experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” shortly after launch. 

What Musk says

•  “X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company,” Musk posted at the weekend.
• He claimed Media Matters “completely misrepresented the real experience on X, in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers”. 
• He also posted separately to X users that “Premium+ has no ads in your timeline. Many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech”.

What it means 

• The mixed messages from Musk seem unlikely to reassure advertisers, who still account for the bulk of the platform’s income – around 90% of revenues in 2022.
• Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, appears unfazed by any possible litigation, telling MSNBC, that “in his [Musk’s] response, in that legal threat, he actually confirmed that our reporting was accurate”.
• Carusone added that advertisers would be looking at the platform and concluding there’s “no way to ever cure the issues that we’re dealing with here because the rot goes all the way to the top”.

The Marketer’s Toolkit 2024, just published by WARC, highlights the need for brands to prepare strategies for an age of polarisation.

Sourced from MSNBC, CNBC, Guardian, X, Media Matters, Business of Apps