X CEO responds to Elon Musk telling departing advertisers to "Go f**k yourself"

Keep going Elon. The sooner you finish killing off "X" the better.

That's not something I would have said about Twitter years ago, but now, with Elon-ism practically bouncing off their office walls, it's well past time for this company to head off to the history books.

These comments are amazing. You really think it's "woke" and a problem to not want your ads placed on pages with pro-Nazi content? Seriously? They aren't even objecting to this content existing on the entire platform, they just don't want their ads right on the pages with this content. You know if Chick-Fil-A had ads stuck on pro-gay/LBGTQ/trans "woke" pages and they pulled their ads you'd be all for it (and I would be too, I don't agree with Chick-Fil-A's corporate conservative views but they have the right to advertise where they want to.)

You know, there is an easy solution to this -- targeted advertising. Television and radio have had this at least 50 years, if an advertiser doesn't want to be advertised during specific shows, they can go ahead and do so. Web sites have done this for a long time too. Instead of telling the advertisers to go **** themselves, it's just not that hard to keep their ads off pages with content they don't want to be associated with, put those ads on the pages with more mainstream content. Even Alex Jones gets his advertisers, so (as much as I hate to say it) there are probably plenty of advertisers that would love to have their banner ads on pages with this content, to the point that Twitter/X could probably see higher click-through/view rates and actually get more per ad if they targeted their ads better to the page content.

- Just in case anyone else in the thread is wondering, Woke generally refers to the recognition of systems in place that inadvertently or not oppress people, sometimes but not exclusively due to race, gender, culture, etc.

Its not about individuals being bigoted or not, but the entire power structure or institution, which itself can be comprised entirely of individuals who are not personally bigoted at all.

The ultimate irony of it all is that "wokeness" in a way actually lets the individuals of the majority group off the hook... it really doesn't have much to do with whether or not you personally are a good or bad person, its about existing in a system designed to selectively oppress people.

As such, the reflexive, knee jerk response to "wokeism" is sort of perplexing (outside of the standard politicing and whatnot).

GodisanAtheist said:

- Just in case anyone else in the thread is wondering, Woke generally refers to the recognition of systems in place that inadvertently or not oppress people, sometimes but not exclusively due to race, gender, culture, etc.

Its not about individuals being bigoted or not, but the entire power structure or institution, which itself can be comprised entirely of individuals who are not personally bigoted at all.

The ultimate irony of it all is that "wokeness" in a way actually lets the individuals of the majority group off the hook... it really doesn't have much to do with whether or not you personally are a good or bad person, its about existing in a system designed to selectively oppress people.

As such, the reflexive, knee jerk response to "wokeism" is sort of perplexing (outside of the standard politicing and whatnot).

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You are a nostic cultist, and the above garbage are failed marxist ideas re-packed in a modern wrapping.

GodisanAtheist said:

As such, the reflexive, knee jerk response to "wokeism" is sort of perplexing (outside of the standard politicing and whatnot).

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What I've seen is an alarming trend toward casual racism, sexism, anti-semitism, anti-LGBTQ, anti-whatever else, including actively wanting to take away people's rights. Then using the term "woke" like saying "You know, maybe I'd rather not have anything to do with those views" is some radical viewpoint.

And of course, with no sense of irony some of these people want to take away rights, while simultaneously complaining that "I don't want anything to do with this viewpoint" is taking away their right to free speech.

I think some of this is done to try to legitimize and regularize views that would have been considered quite fringe 20 years ago.

I do wish the US had a more functional multi-party system; if you had 4 or 5 parties in play like you have in many countries, you'd have a reduction in the polarization you see these days. You'd have a far-left party with the views "many" Republicans pretend almost all Democrats have; a far-right party with the views "many" Democrats pretend almost all Republicans have; and some center-left and center-right parties that could actually come to agreements on various issues rather than the "us versus them" mentality the 2 main parties have now. Ahh well.

hwertz said:

You know if Chick-Fil-A had ads stuck on pro-gay/LBGTQ/trans "woke" pages and they pulled their ads you'd be all for it

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Nope, we wouldn't. This is a fake, manufactured outrage is very similar to youtube-ad-apocalipse. The smear-merchants had to dig really deep to find an ad appearing on an extremist's video, and presented it, as if it would be the standard.

The above companies are known to be progressive-alinged, they just had to find a convinient excuse to pull their ads from Twitter, so they will not anger the investors, and get hit with a lawsuit.

takemaru said:

Nope, we wouldn't. This is a fake, manufactured outrage is very similar to youtube-ad-apocalipse. The smear-merchants had to dig really deep to find an ad appearing on an extremist's video, and presented it, as if it would be the standard.

The above companies are known to be progressive-alinged, they just had to find a convinient excuse to pull their ads from Twitter, so they will not anger the investors, and get hit with a lawsuit.

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With all due respect, companies do not need a convenient excuse to pull their advertising from anywhere they wish to, companies decide to cut ad spend on one platform in favor of another all the time and the could have done this months ago. This isn't fake, manufactured outrage, or smear, it's advertisers not wanting to be associated with the content their ads were being placed near.

I seriously don't think IBM is progressive-aligned; and I doubt that all of the 59% of advertising revenues that had dropped off by June were all progressive-aligned companies either.

I would like to add, this isn't a "progressive" versus "conservative" thing as too many make it out to be. If there were some posts about a conservative viewpoint on healthcare, or military spending, or state versus federal rights, or a slew of other topics, there'd be nothing to talk about, I don't think any of them would have pulled their ads over it. We seem to be getting some of the ugly views of totalitarianism, fascism, and nationalism being espoused, then when people react badly to those views it's a "knee-jerk" liberal or progressive reaction when in truth many people have conservative political views but also not want to have anything to do with this stuff.

Just to point out, Twitter/X could have avoided these problems with technological means! Even developing an Android app with a banner ad, I was able to check off whether I wanted gambling, alcohol/tobacco, or "adult" ads in the rotation, among others. And conversely, the advertisers are able to check off they do not want their ads placed on gambling apps or "adult" apps, among other controls. I'm surprised Twitter/X didn't simply give advertisers some control on where their ads are going. Besides not losing so many advertisers, they'd probably have higher click-through/engagement rates and get a bit more $$$ per ad if they did.

takemaru said:

Why are you putting words in his mouth? You made a lot of assumptions based on a one liner?

"advertisers definitely have the freedom to decide where to put their ads"
True, but if most of the advertiser money is going on progressive-allinged platforms, it's basically killing off neutral and conservative leaning sites. It's making a good portion of the internet prog, while it's not really representative of the population at large.

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Most ridiculous thing I've read today. First, got any proof of your claim? And second, if 2/3 of the internet were to become cesspools of misinformation, racism, hate and violence, you're saying that companies should still advertise there to keep those sites thriving? It's unfortunate a certain side of our population has defined literally everything as either progressive or conservative but I don't see how spewing racist crap is in any way something a company wants it's ads connected with.

If conservatism is so popular, shouldn't there be a plethora of advertisers just tripping over themselves to pay for a space to advertise? Maybe "progressive-aligned platforms" are more favorable over conspiracy-laden, misinformation filled propaganda sites (although there are plenty of people that love a good issue of National Enquirer at the grocery checkout, right?)

TheRealSCDC said:

Far more people "get it" with Musk. A lot of us would love to tell Disney to "F" off.

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On the other hand, a lot of us would love it if Musk could just shove his opinions up his "X".

wiyosaya said:

As I see it, you're dealing with a perception that "our Gov't" is censoring you to death. While that may be true in the case of you, or anyone, from years past reporting a UFO, it isn't necessarily true now. IMO, that "perception" comes from something else. What that something else is is the key question, IMO.

Personally, I don't understand how anyone can feel that their freedom of speech is being infringed when they spout lies - especially lies that move others to violence - and in the US that has been litigated in a SCOTUS decision that "inciting violence" is not necessary for the free exchange of ideas that the 1st Amendment is, arguably, designed to protect.

Besides, X, or Twitter, was never under "gov't control" except to comply with law.

Are you telling me/us that what you really want is anarchy?

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Of course they are. It's simply a poorly thought out knee jerk reaction. Often made out of perceived inadequacies of our current system/s. The idea is no rules are better than "unjust" rules. The bigger issue is unjust for exactly who? And the answer to that, them of course.

Plutoisaplanet said:

Just to add, Elon did clarify that the second part of that tweet had nuance that is what he especially agreed with, which I didn't understand before. He said:

For reference, here is that original tweet again:


Well whether it is costly probably depends on how people perceive this news, and fueled by some news agencies indubitably misreporting as Elon Musk telling "its" or "all" advertisers to go **** yourself. But any CEO should also expect that and temper their public comments as such. On the other hand, this article reports the news fairly and links to the entire conversation.

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ANY company advertising on X formerly Twitter needs to have some serious inhouse discusions to decide if Musk is worth it or if there are opportunities elsewhere that have less exposure in Musk exploding into them too.

Plutoisaplanet said:

The reason why conspiracy theories have flourished is because there is a perception that major news agencies DO lie on a regular basis. Thus those people with these theories that may be untrue base these on statements that depend on news agencies lying (or giving conspiracy theorists the benefit of the doubt, do not depend on statements only supported by the news agencies). Thus, information independence would be "independence" from the media.

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Excellent examples of this are the incident regarding the Washington Post and their proven intentional misrepresentation of minors while on a field trip to Washington D.C. and more recently that little kerfuffle whereby the New York Times "misreported" that Israel had targeted a hospital in Gaza with rockets. Which they then altered both in title and body 4 times within 24 hours as the reality of the situation became clearly diametric to what they had originally published. All this without issuing a single citation regarding the rewritten content of the piece, this may have been cited at a later time but folks diligently following the unfolding story had already pointed out their shenanigans.

This is not limited to outlets deemed to have a particular political cant in the US though as both CBC and BBC have seen fit to eviscerate their long standing traditions of evidence based journalism over the last several decades in an ever more feverish race to be FIRST! to print/publish. CBC and BBC almost religiously lock their comments sections on any story of a socially dynamic nature, this should be illegal on a publicly funded platform but yet it is now the norm. Twitter/X is now and has always been pretty unruly but it is nothing but a comments section and I'll happily pick my way through the nonsense, ruffians and charlatans so long as everyone gets to say their piece.

Should be interesting to see what comes of the disclosures in court regarding the Media matters shenanigans regarding X over the last few weeks as well.

bviktor said:

It really is a gag reflex for ya, innit? All you can say is "woke woke woke".

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...He said "woke" once, you, 3 times. He mentioned it as statement of fact, you responded, overtly, obviously emotionally...while accusing him of precisely that...

wiyosaya said:

As I see it, you're dealing with a perception that "our Gov't" is censoring you to death. While that may be true in the case of you, or anyone, from years past reporting a UFO, it isn't necessarily true now. IMO, that "perception" comes from something else. What that something else is is the key question, IMO.

Personally, I don't understand how anyone can feel that their freedom of speech is being infringed when they spout lies - especially lies that move others to violence - and in the US that has been litigated in a SCOTUS decision that "inciting violence" is not necessary for the free exchange of ideas that the 1st Amendment is, arguably, designed to protect.

Besides, X, or Twitter, was never under "gov't control" except to comply with law.

Are you telling me/us that what you really want is anarchy?

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Yeah I don't get the perception of there being all this government censorship, when nothing in question has been censored at all, they've just had businesses choose to no longer advertise with them.

That said, I must disagree with later portions of this post. Spouting lies is a problem, misinformation is a problem, but unless there's an explicit and specific threat of violence I am not in favor of the gov't stepping in. The first ammendment does guarantee their rights to say what they want. It's very convenient to say you believe in freedom of speech for things you agree with and those other things should be restricted. On the other hand, advertisers are 100% within their right to leave the platform when they are not only doing nothing to combat the issue, but really encouraging it.

TheRealSCDC said:

Far more people "get it" with Musk. A lot of us would love to tell Disney to "F" off.

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Way more of us would love to tell a certain orange imbecile and his worshipers the same.

LMAO!!

Boy, those thin-skinned anti-woke people (who are whining and throwing hissy fits about something they can't even explain...), love to call everyone else snowflakes!!

The irony is really thick lately!!

Freddie159 said:

ANY company advertising on X formerly Twitter needs to have some serious inhouse discusions to decide if Musk is worth it or if there are opportunities elsewhere that have less exposure in Musk exploding into them too.

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No doubt. Politics aside, I would be very concerned as an advertiser at how he seems to be completely unable to keep the personal and professional lives seperate in any way. I'm sure some executives or owners of other companies have very polarizing political views; but, they either don't discuss them at all or do so only through their personal accounts, keep the professional communications bland and inoffensive. I would be very concerned about how often Musk has gone, lets say, "gone off script", how often he may do this again in the future and what he may say when he does so.

She has her work cut out for her. I wouldn't give up that payday anytime soon either.