Twitter’s US Ad Sales Plunge Despite Musk’s Claims — Why So?

Twitter's ad revenue is still falling despite Elon Musk's claims.

The company recently predicted in internal forecasts that it would see its ad sales continue to decline despite its former CEO's claims that almost all of its advertisers have returned following the boycott against it in late 2022.

Many advertisers either paused or removed their advertisements completely after Musk's takeover due to his broken promise about Twitter's supposed content moderation measures.

Twitter Ad Revenue Decline Details

Former Twitter CEO and current Chief Technology Officer Elon Musk mentioned during his interview with the BBC that the company's advertising business was recovering from the slumps it faced during his initial takeover, with Twitter breaking even based on its finances after the changes he made.

However, it seems the return of Twitter's advertisers didn't mean anything when it came to the company's advertising revenue. According to a report from the New York Times, which cited an internal presentation it obtained, the company's advertising revenue for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May was $88 million, a 59% decrease in the same period in 2022.

The publication also noted in the presentation that Twitter has regularly fallen short of its US weekly sales projections, sometimes by as much as 30%. As such, seven current and former Twitter employees predict that Twitter's ad revenue is unlikely to improve anytime soon.

Twitter's ad sales staff is concerned that advertisers may have shied away from the platform following the rise in hate speech and pornography on the website, along with the rise of ads featuring online gambling and marijuana products. Some of the staff even revealed that certain brands that returned to Twitter are using its adjacency controls to keep their advertisements clear of increasingly troubling content, such as Musk's own tweets, per Business Insider.

Jason Kint, chief executive of Digital Content Next, said that Twitter is "unpredictable and chaotic;" advertisers want to post their content in an environment they're comfortable with and "can send a signal about their brand."

How Twitter's new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, will navigate such a problem is still unknown. The new CEO started her post as CEO on June 5, effectively succeeding Musk as the company's Chief Twit.

Advertiser Exodus And Content Moderation Boycotts

Twitter's poor ad revenue performance is the result of advertisers' exodus from the company after Civil rights Groups urged them to pause or remove their ads on the platform.

You may recall that because Musk laid off many of Twitter's employees and has gone back on every promise he made to civil-rights leaders and advertisers, many companies, like the Volkswagen Group, General Mills, Pfizer, and Mondalez, either paused their ads or left Twitter. These companies did so as a precautionary measure to the potential changes Musk could be doing in the company or as a show of solidarity to the people protesting Musk's lack of content moderation on Twitter.

As a result, Twitter saw a glaring decline in advertisement booking in late 2022, leading to a sizable revenue drop of 49% year over year.