It has been going downhill for X for a while now since Elon Musk purchased the social media platform. There are a variety of reasons from subscriptions to rebranding efforts, but for the business aspect of the company, it's the advertisers' exodus that put X in hot waters.
Musk Wants Them Back
The X owner is not known for thinking before posting, and that has been evident based on the countless problems his statements on X have caused. It was an antisemitic post that drove advertisers out, but it was his response to the exit that ensured none would come back.
Not so long ago, the tech billionaire made the mistake of cussing at advertisers when they decided to take their business out of the platform, and now, he is taking it back or is at least explaining that he did not mean it as a directed statement.
"It wasn't so advertisers as a whole," he reasoned, further explaining that it was with respect to freedom of speech, as mentioned in CNBC. "I think it is important to have a global free speech platform, where people from a wider range of opinions can voice their views."
That wasn't the end of his explanation. He added further that in some cases, there were advertisers who insisted on censorship, and that he would choose to have free speech and lose money than to censor users of the platform.
"We're going to support free speech rather than agree to be censored for money which I think is the right moral decision," he concluded. Anyone who has been following the events the concern X knows well enough that absolute free speech might not be the best idea.
For instance, when Musk acquired the platform in 2022, racist and derogatory posts quickly emerged from the platform. They were mostly from trolls who had no traces of their identity on their accounts, and it went on for a while too.
The same freedom of speech was also the reason some advertisers had already left earlier before the mass exit after Musk's antisemitic post, fearing that their advertisements would appear adjacent to insensitive statements.
What Caused the Mass Exodus
Since Musk has a reputation for speaking his mind despite the potential consequences, his posts have become somewhat of an entertainment to others. However, there are those that many believe have crossed the line, such as his agreement to an antisemitic post.
For context, an X user said that Jews "have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them." Musk then proceeded to agree saying that it was "the actual truth," as mentioned by CBS News.
That was what finally pushed out the remaining advertising giants from the platform such as Apple, IBM, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Sony, and many more. Given that ad sales are among the biggest sources of revenue for X, one can easily see how that's troublesome.
